21573

 

II  

Designated  

31/03/1999  

24/05/2002  

Tredegarville Baptist Church  

 

Cardiff  

Roath  

Cardiff  

Tredegarville  

319069  

176889  

S  

Situated at the junction of The Parade with East Grove.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

English Baptist chapel built in 1861-2 at a cost of £3,600 as an offshoot of Bethany Baptist chapel, Cardiff, to designs by W. G. Habershon of London. Site given by Lord Tredegar who is said to have stipulated that the chapel be cruciform in plan. Foundation stone laid 31st July 1861 and schoolroom occupying basement of new church was opened 3rd December 1861. New chapel opened 22nd May 1862.  

Contrasting white and dark grey limestone, traditionally said to have been brought from Italy as ballast stone in coal ships, but more likely, according to Perkins, to have come from Galway, Republic of Ireland. Slate roofs with plain ridge tiles. Cruciform plan with vestry under lean-to roof at rear linking to hall block. Geometric gothic in style. Main chapel is raised above basement and approached by broad flight of steps. Steps at sides up to chapel level of transepts. Main front has slightly projecting vestibule between stepped buttresses with central arched doorway under separate gablet and small windows to each side. Large twin window and roundel with Decorated tracery within plate stonework to main gable and single, tall lancet window to each outer bay. Side elevations divided into 3 bays - transept - one bay, with stepped buttresses between bays. Square headed windows to basement with tall, two-light windows with Decorated tracery to chapel. Large 4-light window with Decorated 5-circles-within-a-circle tracery. Circular 'rose' window with circular tracery to upper part of rear gable. Circular window with circular tracery to each side of vestry. Two-storey hall block at right angles to chapel with coupled 2-light windows with Decorated tracery.  

Small 3-sided vestibule leads into large inner vestibule formed by inserting partly glazed timber screen across last bay of chapel. Wooden stairs up to gallery at both ends of inner vestibule. Main part of chapel is rectangular, the transepts being separated from it by timber screens, originally boarded but since 1992 fully glazed. High, timber-boarded ceiling supported on arch-braces and tie-beams. Raked galleries on three sides with diagonal boarded timber fronts painted green and cream in rectangular panels and wrought iron handrails, supported on slender cast iron round columns with incised spiral decoration and octagonal capitals. Galleries extend back into transepts and over vestibule. Original timber pews, canted at sides. Large baptistry surrounded by arcaded stone walls with trefoiled panels and leaf capitals. At rear of baptistry steps on both sides to raised platform with doors to vestry, and 3-sided timber pulpit with recessed panels incorporating quatrefoils and leaf capitals and steps on both sides. Pointed arched recess in wall behind pulpit with 'rose' window with coloured glass above. In rear gallery large organ pipes arranged in two groups on either side of window above entrance. Organ case moved (1997) to alcove next to baptistry. Many stained glass memorial windows; on W wall: Daniel Mathias, 1803-77, biblical plants, texts and heads of prophets and evangelist, c1880; Thomas London Griffiths 1860-1933 and his wife Sarah Alice 1859-1955, 'Empty Tomb'; Hopkin and Elizabeth Jane Williams 1836-93 and 1847-1937, 'Suffer Little Children', 1938 by Powells; on E wall: Mary Webb, 1804-80, biblical plants with texts and heads of prophets and Evangelists, c1880; John Russell Thomas, 1900-62, 'Baptism of Christ', c1962, signed by Bristow Wadley & Co. Ltd., of Cardiff; William Henry Mayne, 1868-1948, 'Good Samaritan'. E and W transepts with stairs to galleries form separate and enclosed spaces lit by large windows with coloured glass.  

Listed as a chapel with strongly modelled Gothic exterior and fine interior with original fittings and enhanced by an unusually good collection of stained glass windows.