3271

 

II  

Designated  

08/10/1981  

05/05/2006  

Capel Tabernacl  

 

Conwy  

Conwy  

Conwy  

Walled town  

278036  

377590  

NE  

Set back from and at near right angles to the street behind a forecourt with gates, and backing on to Chapel Street.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

The Wesleyan cause was founded in Conwy in 1826 and was mentioned by Samuel Lewis in 1833. The chapel originally faced Chapel Street, where it has a façade probably of the 1860s. It was rebuilt with an entrance at the former rear, in 1885 (date on building).  

A chapel with freestyle 3-bay gable-end SE front added to a slightly wider earlier building behind. Of snecked rock-faced light-grey stone, with hammer-dressed quoins and dressings, and slate roof on projecting stepped verge, with coping on a moulded cornice. The central entrance is in a shallow projecting porch under a cornice. It has 2 round-headed boarded doors with strap hinges, radial-glazed overlights, with hooded freestone voussoirs and moulded imposts. It is flanked by windows in the outer bays with small lying panes. At gallery level are similar windows R and L, but under drip moulds, and a similar central triple window, which has a drip mould raised in the centre over a tablet inscribed: 'Tabernacl Adoyweiriwyd 1885'. Rock-faced return walls of the entrance front have 2 superimposed windows similar to the front. The 2-window pebble-dashed side walls of the main chapel have horned sash windows with frosted glass at ground and gallery levels. Nos 25 and 27 Chapel Street abut the chapel further behind. The original 3-bay entrance front is now the rear gable end, facing Chapel Street. It is in simple classical style, of crushed pieces of limestone to create a flint-like effect, with freestone dressings and quoins of Bath stone. The roof is behind a coped gable on moulded kneelers, with apex finial. It has a central blocked round-headed doorway. Outer bays have round-headed small-pane horned sash windows with radial glazing. At gallery level the central bay has a pair of similar windows set within a single round-headed arch. The gable has a quatrefoil. On the R side of the SE front is an L-shaped vestry and school room contemporary with the 1885 rebuilding. It has a projecting entrance in the angle with the chapel, with double boarded doors and strap hinges under a stone hipped roof. To its R is a horned sash window of 12 lying panes. A projecting gabled bay on the R has a tripartite 12-pane horned sash window, and its L-hand return another sash window with lying panes. Its rear wall is brick.  

In the entrance vestibule are panel doors R and L to the main chapel, and gallery stairs against the front wall. These have a lower flight with turned balusters and newel, then a quarter turn to a panel door and closed-string upper flight. Opposite the entrance is a free-classical 1914-19 war memorial tablet. It is round-headed with Vitruvian-scroll decoration, billet frieze and keystone to the arch enclosing a brass plaque below a high-relief hand holding foliage. The main chapel has scribed plaster walls and boarded wainscots at ground and gallery level. A 3-sided raked gallery is on cast-iron posts with moulded capitals. Its projecting front has a lower boarded panels, and upper panels with cast-iron grilles. A central round clock is a replacement in an original round panel. The flat panelled ceiling has heavy moulded ribs, and is on brackets with corbels at cornice level. The rear wall behind the pulpit is a false wall. To the R and L of the organ are tall windows at gallery level, with lying panes, and similar shorter windows below the gallery. The ramped floor has numbered pews with shaped ends. The gallery has similar pews. The set fawr is integral with a railed enclosure in front of the pulpit, all of which is probably later than 1885. The set fawr has a lower tier of boarding and an upper tier of turned balusters and newels. The faceted pulpit has round-arch panels. Stairs to the L and R have turned balusters and newels. The vestry has a false ceiling, and arcaded wainscot.  

Listed for its special architectural interest as a well-preserved C19 town chapel of definite character, with good interior detail.