Capel Y Tabernacl

Capel Y Tabernacl

Chapel in free Gothic style, built in coursed rock-faced Pennant stone with sandstone and Bath stone dressings, slate roof with red terracotta ridge tiles. The building is distinguished by a large gable front with winged stair towers executed in late Gothic style.

The front elevation features banded octagonal angle piers and turrets topped with coped gables. The centrepiece is a large 4-centred arched 5-light traceried window set above a pointed door in a traceried band. The main gable carries a finial, flush band, and tiny lancet window. The window frame is moulded with a hoodmould rising to a large foliate finial, and features intricate cusped tracery with chamfered sill and sill band. The door below has a moulded head with blind Gothic panels flanking it on each side, one panel glazed, and a sill band beneath. A moulded course runs above, carried round the octagonal piers. The piers are banded in pale sandstone rising to octagonal turret finials with blind tracery sides and ogee stone caps.

The wings are canted and hipped with pointed doors to the front and a band of leaded windows above. They have moulded doorheads with blind tracery, ashlar quoins at the angles, and an upper band of leaded square-headed windows with chamfered sides and blind cusped arched heads—three lights to the front and two to the canted end. Stone steps lead up to all three doors.

The side walls are rendered, two-storeys, with five windows. Yellow brick quoins mark two-step buttresses between bays. Windows are two-light, square-headed, with blind tracery above, matching those of the stair wings. The rear comprises two gabled ranges, plain in character; one is the previous chapel of 1905, now serving as schoolroom and vestry.

Interior

The interior is ornately finished with a curved plastered ceiling divided into six bays, the entrance end bay narrowed by stair towers on either side. A dentil cornice broken forward under ribs is supported on Ionic corbels. The ribs are panelled with three plaster panels to each bay—one long between two short—all with shouldered angles and inset plain rectangles. The long panels feature a plaster roundel at the apex, with only the long panel appearing in the narrow bay. Side windows are two-light with Art Nouveau coloured glass.

A four-sided gallery on nine iron columns, made by W A Baker & Co of Newport, runs around the interior. The gallery front features a continuous cast-iron frontal, double-curved in profile, composed of short sections with ornate foliate pierced panels above a row of small blind traceried panels. The pierced panels have leaf scrolls flanked by narrower fleur-de-lys panels. A hardwood cornice and top rail complete the gallery. The gallery frontal is lower behind the pulpit, with hardwood ramped-down panels on each side.

Fine hardwood pews in three blocks, all curved with shaped ends, have a dado with vertical boarding under a panelled strip. The curved back of the seating features egg-and-dart moulding to the panels. In front of the great seat stands a panelled curved-fronted table. A fine platform with stairs up each side features panelled newels and vase finials, with pierced flat balusters to the stairs and platform.

The canted three-sided pulpit is panelled with fielded panels and egg-and-dart and bead-and-reel mouldings. Four fluted Ionic columns support a cornice with pulvinated frieze and curved pediment under the book-rest. The pulpit is mounted on four large shaped radiating brackets. A panelled back rises behind the platform under the organ gallery, with half-glazed doors flanking the platform on each side.

The end gallery features a broad depressed arch to the organ recess, framed by panelled Ionic pilasters. The organ dates to 1911 and is by Norman & Beard. The entrance lobby contains a glazed timber screen with two double doors and a 6-light window in Art Nouveau coloured glass. Plaques dated 1910 are set into the lobby. Stairs with urn finials to the newels and pointed arches above rise on each side, with further stairs in the rear south-east corner. A deep entrance-end gallery has half-glazed doors on each side and raked pews, with some coloured glass in the traceried window.

The rear vestry has parallel roofs supported by iron columns carrying the valley.