939

 

II*  

Designated  

04/07/1966  

12/07/2006  

Pendref Chapel including forecourt walls & railings  

 

Denbighshire  

Ruthin  

Ruthin  

 

312423  

358207  

 

Set back from the road behind forecourt walls & railings, towards the top of the hill  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Congregational chapel. Built in 1827, with renovations of 1875. School-room and vestry said to have been added in the 1870s.  

An unusual bow-fronted chapel with some classical-style detail. Symmetrical 2-storey 3-bay front, the central bay slightly advanced, the outer bays bowed and swept back to angles, as if to form end piers. Constructed of large blocks of coursed limestone; shallow hipped slate roof, set back behind parapets. Round-arched windows with plain stone surrounds, containing margin-glazed small-pane sashes with radial glazing. Central portico on Tuscan columns, the entablature supporting a raised pedimented tablet reading 'Built 1827 / Renovated 1875'. Inside portico, round-arched stone doorcase with wooden door of 4 leaves, each of 4 moulded panels, under a radial fanlight. Moulded string course to parapets, with wide panel above central bay, which formerly read 'Congregational', crowned by a triangular pediment. Balustraded parapets to outer bays, with panelled end piers, formerly supporting tall urns with finials (now freestanding on ground). The E and W sides of the chapel are of rubble stone, 3-window to ground floor and 2-window to upper storey, the windows as front with round-arched heads of stone voussoirs. Rear has 2 similar windows at gallery level, lighting pulpit; adjoining beneath, added single-storey school-room and vestry. It is constructed of brick, mainly rendered, under a slate roof. It projects to W with entrance facing N, containing double panelled doors under a segmental head; lateral stack to W end. Its S elevation has 3 stepped windows under a wide gable, top-hung with small-pane glazing; projection to W has segmental-arched door and window. The chapel is set back behind forecourt walls & railings. Square gate piers of large blocks of coursed dressed stone with chamfered angles, with moulded pyramidal capstones with ball finials. Similar flanking walls with pecked chamfered stone copings, on a plinth which gets higher to E as ground falls. Narrow end piers with triangular heads, against adjacent buildings. The walls support cast iron railings with scrollwork. Later cast iron double gates with lozenge frieze to lock rail.  

Entrance lobby has encaustic tile floor, with 2 canted doorways leading into chapel, between which is a margin-glazed 4-pane window. The main chamber has a U-shaped gallery with wood-panelled front on a moulded dentilled bressumer, supported on 6 slender cast iron columns. Fine decorative plaster ceiling with ornate foliate ceiling roses: very large rose to centre, and roses set in large square panels to each corner; moulded ceiling cornice with painted decoration beneath. Three tiers of pews with moulded bench ends; similar pews to raked gallery. Wainscot panelling. Opposite entrance, wood-panelled Set Fawr with pierced decoration, and doorways to canted angles. Octagonal-fronted wooden pulpit, also with pierced decoration, flanked by steps with turned balusters and round newels. Recess behind pulpit with open triangular pediment supported on scrolled decorative brackets; flanking panelled doors. School-room to rear has canted ceiling.  

Listed grade II* for its architectural interest as a C19 chapel of idiosyncratic form, with fine classical-style detail, and for the particularly fine interior.