23529

 

II  

Designated  

18/07/2000  

25/09/2003  

Capel Salem  

 

Powys  

Llansilin  

Oswestry  

Llansilin  

320900  

328600  

 

Situated on the N edge of Llansilin, on the E side of a minor road N from the B4580.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Baptist chapel of 1831, the name and date displayed on a plaque on the gable facing the road. Rendered probably in early C20 with new stucco surrounds to door and windows. Interior refitted probably in later C19. The Rev. John Roberts from Penysarn, Llansilian, Anglesey, the founder of the Baptist cause in the area (d. 1853), is buried in the graveyard.  

Chapel in unpainted roughcast with unpainted stucco plinth, quoins and dressings to windows and door. Slate close-eaved roof with plain bargeboards to gables. Long-wall facade of four bays, three large 42-pane sash windows in thin moulded architraves. Door between second and third windows with moulded architrave, thin cornice and slightly curved-sided minimal pediment over, outlined just by raised thin strips. Right end has two windows with marginal glazing bars. Left end has an unpainted cement plaque 'Salem Addoldy y Bedyddwyr 1831'. Low single-storey stable attached to left, roughcast with slate roof and with plank door to left. By the door a two-step mounting block. Rear has one similar 42-pane sash to right, left obscured by attached rubble stone range, mostly now private house but ground floor left including vestry.  

Interior refitted in late C19 with pulpit between end windows. Wooden shutters to windows. Boarded dado, pitch-pine pews in 3 blocks raked up to back, 2 blocks open to one aisle, one to the other. Baptismal font under floor in front, between entrance door and rear vestry door. Two small blocks each side of pulpit and balustraded short rail to back of set fawr. Pulpit has herring-bone boarded panels, and bookrest on pierced brackets. Narrow panels each side have fretwork piercing. Plaster arch behind pulpit with console brackets and added timber pilasters. Moulded plaster cornice with paired brackets, ceiling with 4 plaster roundels.  

Included for its architectural interest as an earlier C19 rural chapel with unusual 42-pane windows.