23480

 

II  

Designated  

05/06/2000  

05/06/2000  

Y Crwys Independent Chapel including boundary railings and piers  

 

Swansea  

Llanrhidian Higher  

Swansea  

Three Crosses  

257136  

194139  

NW  

In the village of Three Crosses, 3 km SE of Penclawdd. Rubble graveyard wall to front; in-turned entrance with wrought-iron gates and railings, ashlar piers.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

The Independent cause at Y Crwys started at Cwmmawr Isaf in 1689, and the first Crwys Chapel was opened in 1788. The present chapel was built in 1876-7 for £2500 to the design of the celebrated chapel architect John Humphrey. Y Crwys was built on a restricted site, but when additional land to the west was acquired (after 1913) it was slightly enlarged at the rear of the pulpit and a large vestry added. The pulpit was rebuilt and the set fawr altered. These enlargements are consistent with the style of the interior and may have been a completion of the original design. A clash between the present ceiling and the façade window design suggests the ceiling is not part of the original design.  

A large chapel of eclectic round-arched character with a façade of rock-faced ashlar masonry, coursed and snecked, with dressings of Bath stone. Rendered side elevations and rear, slate roof with tile ridge. Large plain vestry addition, rendered, at rear. The façade masonry is returned slightly at the sides. The window frames of the front and left side have been replaced in uPVC. The façade is divided into three parts with a slightly advancing centre, the latter containing three entrance doors and a huge multiple round-arched window above between pilasters. At each side is a tall round-headed window in a recessed panel. The multiple window is the feature of the design, with a central round headed light, two small windows each side, two triplets of smaller windows beneath, and a halo arch surrounding five circular lights above. Three courses of sill stonework, interrupted by a slight pediment-like feature over the central door. The halo arch springs from a string course which runs out to the springing line of the two outer windows. The three doors have plain arches on Gothic capitals, the abaci of which run out as a thin string course beneath which the masonry is slightly battered. Decorative coped gable above with acroterion-like features on the corners, apex and pilasters, and a shallow blind arcading between pilasters. Finial at top. The door arches carry the name, CAPEL ANNIBYNOL Y CRWYS in incised letters. The side elevations have single gallery windows above pairs of lower windows, all round headed. Rectangular sash windows to the vestry.  

Y Crwys is entered through a plain vestibule lit by a clerestory of the lower lights of the central front window. The interior features a hardwood and pitch pine pulpit in a round-shaped set fawr, altered when the chapel was enlarged, and an all round gallery completed at the same period. The main seating is in four blocks with two passageways, the side pews being angled to face the pulpit. The gallery seating is similar. The gallery front, on nine cast-iron columns, has a colourfully painted cast-iron openwork frieze above painted boarding, and a plain handrail above. The gallery has been completed behind the pulpit with a dropped section in similar detailing, carrying two additional rows of seats and the organ loft. The organ (2 manual, Blackett and Howden, Swansea) is recessed in a stilted elliptical headed opening, breaking through the dentilled cornice. Elliptical-section ceiling divided into rectangles by shallow ribs The pulpit is symmetrical with canted sides and a dropping section of handrail linking to winding stairs each side. Large panels with arched heads on black colonnettes; high-relief floral and agricultural panel carvings. The memorials include a list of ministers from 1689, a memorial to E J Long, choirmaster, 1946, and a bronze memorial to the fallen in the 1939-45 war.  

A chapel by the celebrated chapel architect, John Humphrey, with a good interior enlarged in conformity with its original design and including an all-round gallery.