Tabernacle Congregational Chapel, including forecourt gates and wall, and attached vestries. is a Grade II listed building in the Neath Port Talbot local planning authority area, Wales. First listed on 3 August 2000. Chapel.
Tabernacle Congregational Chapel, including forecourt gates and wall, and attached vestries.
- WRENN ID
- iron-panel-summer
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Neath Port Talbot
- Constituency
- Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe MP: David Chadwick (LD)
- Country
- Wales
- Date first listed
- 3 August 2000
- Type
- Chapel
- Address
- Tabernacle Congregational Chapel, including forecourt gates and wall, and attached vestries., Pontardawe
- OS grid reference
- SN 723 042
- Coordinates
- 51.72214, -3.8489
- Source
- Cadw listing
Description
The Tabernacle Congregational Chapel, along with its forecourt gates and wall, and attached vestries, is a notable building constructed from rock-faced brown stone with low courses and freestone dressings, featuring brick dressings on the sides and a slate roof. The chapel has a gabled Gothic front, complete with end buttresses and pinnacles. A quatrefoil is situated in the gable, and there is a central doorway with a window above that has two lights and a quatrefoil. Each side of the chapel features a tall two-light round-headed window with hardwood glazing. The forecourt is enclosed by a low stone wall topped with cast-iron railings that have fleur-de-lys finials, along with iron gatepiers that include a semi-circular overthrow with similar finials and matching cast-iron gates. The sides of the chapel have windows at two levels, which are round-arched over camber-headed.
Inside, the chapel boasts a very fine unaltered interior. The lobby has flanking stairs leading to the gallery, and on the chapel side, there is a notable stained glass window that serves as a War Memorial from 1949. The body of the chapel features a flat boarded and ribbed ceiling adorned with three elaborate roses, decorative vents on the sides, and a classicising cornice. An impressive gallery, supported by iron columns, encircles all four sides, dropping behind the pulpit and in front of the organ. The wooden gallery frontal is designed with arcading and bracketing, and there is a clock positioned opposite the pulpit. At the rear, there is an organ by Brinley and Foster, with exposed pipes housed in a decorative case. The original wooden seating remains intact at both the gallery level and in the body of the chapel. The octagonal pulpit is flanked by stairs with iron balustrading. Behind the body of the chapel, there is a Deacon's room and a Vestry/Schoolroom block, which includes an unaltered stage, a glass screen leading to the kitchen, and an open roof supported by iron ties.
Local climate
Tabernacle Congregational Chapel, including forecourt gates and wall, and attached vestries. sits in one of the wettest parts of the UK, with an average of 1,380 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 97% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 96% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 28 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 69% of listed buildings. Of these, 12 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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