11967

 

II  

Designated  

12/03/1992  

12/03/1992  

Zion Baptist Chapel, including Forecourt Railings  

 

Carmarthenshire  

Llanelli  

 

 

250929  

200522  

 

Situated at south west end of Zion Row and some 30 m north east of the Water Street-Upper Park Street junction.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

 

1857-8 Baptist Chapel by Henry Rogers of Llanelli in squared rubble stone with extensive dressings in blue lias ashlar. Slate roof. Pedimented Italianate Classical front with giant Tuscan pilasters, plain cornice, and pediment with oval plaque 'Zion Baptist Chapel 1857'. Three-bay, two storey front, the upper windows arch-headed with moulded arches and keystones. Outer windows are margin-glazed sashes with impost bands and jambs carried down to frame square-headed sashes below. Lower sill-band and ashlar rustication beneath. Centre window is slightly broader, without impost bands but pilaster jambs, bracketted sill and 'Florentine' window tracery in wood of two arched lights and roundel over. Ground floor double panelled doors set in big painted timber pedimented Tuscan porch with two columns and pilaster responds. Each side of doorway, sill-band and rustication as in flanking bays. Plain side elevations, 2-storey, 4-window, arched windows above, flat headed below, sashes with narrow marginal and centre panes. East side has 3-window bay, the fourth blocked by attached house. Rear has 2-window centre projection and one-window range each side. Shouldered gable. Stucco hoodmoulds. Front railings of circa 1913 to match those of Sunday School (q.v.).  

Interior: Panelled original gallery on 3 sides, on 3 x 3 iron columns. Box pews. Fourth (choir) gallery behind pulpit drops lower, over panelled wall with doors to gallery stairs. Gallery added 1929 together with organ and panelled 'set fawr'. At rear of choir gallery wall-arcade of Corinthian columns framing broad depressed-arched organ-recess in centre and narrower flanking bays with depressed arches and keystones. Outer columns are paired with Corinthian piers. In outer bays, curved-pedimented timber doorcases to gallery stairs. Above wall-arcade is ornate cornice, not continued on side walls, which have deep coved cornice. Flat boarded ceiling divided into panels by transverse and diagonal ribs. Centre roses. Beneath pulpit is built-in immersion font. At north end are various chapel rooms and gallery stairs. In the chapel tablets to 3 noted ministers including David Bowen, the first minister (1774-1853) and Jubilee Young, minister 1931-57.  

A fine example of classical tradition in chapel building and one of a series of similar Baptist chapels in Llanelli, including Greenfield (1858 H Rogers), Moriah (1870 J Powell) and Caersalem (1893). J Powell was contractor for building of Zion. Group value with schools.