11554

 

II*  

Designated  

30/03/1987  

30/03/1987  

Bethesda Baptist Church  

 

Swansea  

Castle  

 

 

265783  

193897  

 

Set below road level in a railed burial ground on the corner with Prince of Wales Road.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Rebuilt c1870. Architect not known.  

Neo-classical chapel with elaborate Renaissance porch of segmental plan. 3-bay coursed ashlar (decayed) S front, modern pantile roof, cemented and painted side elevations. Pedimented frontispiece with dentil cornice, flanked balustraded parapets and openwork domed turrets with finials to corners. Entablature supported by paired pilasters on tall panelled pedestals with interrupted string-course. Triple openings to pediment, three round-headed lights below inscribed frieze, moulded architraves, keyblocks and linked impost bands, panelled fields with roundels over windows. Longer lights to outer bays. Segmental-plan porch with 3 canted and richly carved doorpieces to round-arched openings, segmental pediments with foliage finials and dove tympana, foliage spandrels, Corinthian pilasters. Paired round-arched doors under porch. W elevation with dentil cornice and entablature continuing from entrance front, 4 pilastered bays with windows on two levels (blank N end with removal of chapel hall). 2-storey, 7-window E elevation without pilasters but with linked import bands. Pedimented N front with chimney at apex and domed turrets linked by solid parapets.  

Said to have an "excellent interior". Christman Evans, the great preacher, who died in 1838, was buried near the original chapel.