Elim Pentecostal Church

Elim Pentecostal Church

A chapel built in 1905, displaying a distinctive architectural composition with a shallow bowed central gable between straight flanks from which project ground floor square bays and first floor shallow gabled bays. The building is constructed of coursed rock-faced grey rubble stone with grey ashlar dressings, featuring moulded copings to the main gables and bays and a slate roof.

The centrepiece is a shallow bow extending to full height, articulated with two ashlar bands in the gable. A large first floor ashlar window of Palladian type with triple lights dominates this central section, while the ground floor features a broad entrance flanked by narrow lights in the same proportion as the windows above, set between classical square columns and pilaster responds. An entablature carried over the entrance extends around the projecting square ground floor bays, which are crowned with ashlar parapets and moulded coping continuous from the first floor sill course of the centre bay. The main first floor window has an almost square central light of six panes with twentieth-century glazing to large side lights, a moulded cornice above, and a substantial fanlight with moulded arch. Ashlar facings rise to an overall hoodmould, with mouldings continued as base mould and coping of the first floor gabled side bays. The sides feature ground floor square bays enclosing a small flagged forecourt with iron rails across. These bays have flush ashlar bands below sills, at sill level and at window head level under the cornice, square-headed windows, and ashlar flush quoins. A cornice and parapet to flat roofs front the shallow-projecting first floor bays, which have flush quoins, bands above the heads of plain paired windows, and ashlar shallow shouldered gables with outer slopes corresponding to the main gable slope. The main gable slope is shouldered on moulded kneelers. The older name "Noddfa" is incised above the ground floor cornice. A twentieth-century glazed screen with double doors encloses the entrance. The side walls are rough rubble with brick arches to openings, and the first floor windows are large: the centre comprises a two-light window with radiating-bar fanlights, while side windows are twentieth-century square-paned. Ground floor windows are similar to the side windows above but narrower. The rear wall contains two horizontal windows above a gallery and beside an organ projection.

The interior is spacious with a high ornate ceiling and an exceptional continuous oval gallery. The curving gallery front features long horizontal moulded wooden panels with moulded top and bottom cornices projecting well forward of a deep plain base supported on only two by two plain iron columns. Panelled soffits run beneath the gallery front, with triangular slatted panels to the undersides between the oval and the corners of the building. The ground floor has been partially cleared, with the great seat and front pews removed. The pulpit is panelled in fine-grained wood. Twin curving staircases have square moulded wooden panels and classical newels. The projecting panelled pulpit front is semi-circular with short straight sections either side, each with a narrow vertical panel and panelled outer pier. A drum projection is carried by three fluted wooden columns and features a deep cornice beneath a two-panel front with moulded top rail. The rear of the platform is three-sided with an upholstered bench seat. The rear wall has plain wainscot with single four-panel doors to the vestry on either side. A large baptism bath with coloured tiles in the floor stands to one side, surrounded by ornate iron railings. The organ loft above the gallery is closed off by a simple late twentieth-century partition of painted hardboard. Remaining pews are arranged in three blocks with close-boarded backs and shaped ends; outer pews are canted towards the pulpit, while steeply raked gallery pews curve to match the gallery shape. Stick banisters cross the gallery windows at the front.

The ceiling is a complex composition basically rectangular in form, decorated with numerous applied broken panels framing two circular vents set in ornate plaster roses. The ceiling pattern consists of spandrel panels around the roses, rectangular panels each side of the squares thus formed, and L- and T-shaped panels linking the rectangles, these last bearing small ornate roses for lights. A moulded border runs around the entire ceiling above a deep coved cornice, with a further deep cornice at wall-head.

The entrance lobby has a marble-chip floor with large boarded doors at each end leading to a smaller lobby. Each side of this smaller lobby has a single panelled door giving access to the chapel, with the gallery staircase opposite and a toilet door facing. The staircases turn through 180 degrees to single panel doors at their top.