20186

 

II  

Designated  

28/07/1998  

28/07/1998  

Capel Sul  

 

Carmarthenshire  

Kidwelly  

Kidwelly  

Kidwelly/Cydweli  

240691  

206812  

W  

Situated on W side of main road (A 484) prominently overlooking Kidwelly Bridge.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Built as Rumsey House in 1862 by T.W.A. Evans (1841-97), architect and later Mayor of Kidwelly. Named after Rumsey House, Calne, Wilts, his mother's family home. In 1920 notorious for the trial and acquittal of the then owner, Harold Greenwood, for the murder of his wife. Bought in 1923 by the Independent congregation then in Ferry Road and converted to a chapel 1924-6 by J. Harold Morgan of Carmarthen. The ground floor became the schoolroom and the two upper floors were combined as the chapel.  

Roughcast and stucco with concrete-tile hipped roof. Italianate style. Large three-storey, five-window fronts to W and E, 3-window N entrance front. Eaves on deep console brackets, attic windows breaking into eaves on W and E, no attic windows on N. Channelled angle piers. E windows have stucco architraves to ground floor, fuller architraves with cornices on consoles to first floor, plain surrounds to attic. 4-pane sashes to ground floor, 1924 leaded cross-windows to upper floors. Right bay has been altered in 1924 to light stair, first-floor window dropped with architrave carried down. W garden front is similar, but with plain raised window surrounds. One tripartite sash to ground floor right. 2-storey, one-window wing at SW angle. N front keeps consoled cornices of two first floor windows but as heads of long window features, with casements over square blank panel over cross-window. Between these is 1924 entrance, two giant pilasters with cornice, and top semi-circular hoodmoulded panel. Between pilasters, three upper windows in miniature pilastrade and door below in a deep coved channelled surround. Top border frames 'CAPEL SUL' in raised letters. Panelled double doors and 3-light overlight.  

Brick vaulted cellars, with wine-bins. Ground floor schoolroom. Chapel interior through two levels notable for complex use of space, effectively aisled with a steeply hipped roof over the central part of the auditorium and panelled flat ceiling over the side galleries. The aisles are created by carrying the gallery piers right up to carry the longitudinal beams of the hipped roof at their intersections with the tie-beams of the 4 roof trusses. Beams are large section, moulded, probably steel clad in timber. Tie-beams have tall triple arcade above, up to collar level, above which the roof is ceiled. Gallery on three sides has front in long panels with open balustrading under top-rail. Curved angles. Square timber piers carried through gallery and up to ornate paired console brackets under longitudinal beams. Raked gallery pews. Organ over entrance lobby. Lower level pews with centre aisle. Pulpit with twisted-baluster steps each side, panelled front with canted sides and ornate pulpit-back in mannered C17 classical style, with semi-circular top panel, carved in radiating shell pattern. In ground floor lobby, plaque from 1831 chapel in Ferry Road.  

Listed as an early C20 chapel interior of quality in a building of great townscape value overlooking the town bridge.