23064

 

II  

Designated  

29/03/2000  

29/03/2000  

New Road Methodist Church  

 

Neath Port Talbot  

Coedffranc  

 

Skewen  

272345  

197405  

N  

Facing New Road (A4230) towards the W side of Skewen village.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Built in 1909 by J. Cook Rees, architect of Neath, at a cost of £2158. The chapel emerged from an earlier Bible Christian congregation in the village that joined the United Methodist Church in 1907.  

A free-Gothic style Methodist church with a 3-bay front facing the street, comprising a gabled central bay and outer bays hipped to the sides. The front is coursed rock-faced stone with lighter stone dressings, and is under a slate roof. The central bay is flanked by plain pilasters that project from upper-window level as polygonal turrets on corbels. The ogee caps of the turrets have blind cusped arches and ball finials. Two central pointed doorways have boarded doors, overlights and a continuous hood mould. Above the doorways is an inscription band reading 'United Methodist Church'. At the upper level is a 4-light segmental-headed window. Above a transom the main light divides into 8 narrow pointed lights with leaves carved into the spandrels. The window has a sill band continuous across the front and returning around the sides of the end bays. Above the main window are 3 stepped lights, the central pointed and its head engraved with the date of the building, the outer flat-headed. A thin moulding defines the base of a parapet. A Celtic cross is on the ridge. Flanking the doorways the outer bays have paired lancets under linked hoods that have square foliage panels between each pair of lancets. The upper level has plainer pairs of lancets. The outer bays have single-bay return walls, which have a single lancet under a moulded hood above the upper sill band (lighting the gallery). The eaves line of the outer bays is slightly higher than the side walls of the main body of the chapel. The 4-window L side wall is roughcast and has pointed windows renewed in original openings. The R side wall is similar but is of rubble stone with brick dressings. Beyond the main chapel, a lower integral vestry behind has a replaced door below a sash window on the R side, and segmental-headed windows to the gable end.  

The vestibule has a wide 3-light glass panel opposite the doorway with Art Nouveau coloured glass. Flanking Tudor-arched doorways with panelled doors lead to the main chapel, while Tudor arches R and L lead to the gallery stairs. These openings, as well as the main windows, have thin shafts to the jambs. The main chapel has a 5-bay collar-beam roof, the principals of which stand on foliage corbels, while the roof is ceiled at collar-beam level and has 3 ceiling roses. A gallery to the rear stands on 3 cast iron columns that have foliage capitals and are panelled below shaft rings set at a low level. The open cast iron gallery front has a bowed cross section and foliage panels. Behind the pulpit is a second raked gallery under a 2-centred pointed arch and incorporating the organ. This gallery has a plainer panelled front with blind trefoils and quatrefoils. (The rear vestry is beneath this gallery.) The main floor is slightly ramped and has benches with moulded ends incorporating blind trefoils. The pulpit has pointed-arch panels and is flanked by steps with moulded square newels and balusters. The communion rail has moulded newels to the ends and a moulded hand rail, with iron balusters composed of twisted columns and foliage sprays. To the L and R of the pulpit are panelled doors to the vestry.  

Listed for its architectural interest as an Edwardian Methodist church retaining original character and detail.