3273

 

II  

Designated  

08/10/1981  

05/05/2006  

Capel Carmel (Eglwys Bresbyteraidd Cymru), including forecourt railings and pier  

 

Conwy  

Conwy  

Conwy  

Walled town  

278093  

377665  

NW  

Set back from the street behind a railed forecourt, and in a prominent position on higher ground opposite Llewelyn Street.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

The Welsh Methodist cause was mentioned by Samuel Lewis as active in Conwy in 1833. The present chapel was probably built in the 1870 or 1880s. It is shown on the 1889 Ordnance Survey.  

A classical-style chapel with scribed roughcast front on a slate-stone plinth, slate roof which is hipped over the outer bays where it incorporates a band of fishscale slates, and iron apex finials. The symmetrical 3-bay gable-end front has rusticated pilasters, parapet balustrade over the outer bays, with panelled corner piers, and a coped, slightly projecting gable to the wider central bay. Openings have generally moulded round heads with faceted keystones. The central entrance has double panel doors under a round-headed margin-lit radial glazed overlight. It is flanked by narrow 2-pane horned sashes on corbelled sills. Other windows are margin-lit small-pane horned sashes, on corbelled sills. Outer bays have 8-pane square-headed windows at ground-floor level and similar but taller round-headed gallery windows. The central bay has a triple gallery window of 8-pane sashes under plate-tracery circles of 2 quatrefoil variations The 2 central mullions have Corinthian capitals. Above the window 'Carmel' is painted on to the roughcast. The 4-window L side wall is pebble-dashed and has margin-lit 8-pane horned sashes on corbelled sills, taller to gallery level. The R side is rubble stone but has similar windows, although only 3 at the lower level where the Sunday School porch occupies the R side. Ground-floor windows have stone lintels, gallery windows are beneath the eaves. The rear has an early C20 organ lean-to mostly obscured by a lower later lean-to vestry extension, of which the L-side extends against a coped wall between chapel and Sunday School, incorporating the Sunday School porch, and has a roughcast stack. The forecourt is above a rubble-stone retaining wall with freestone coping. It has cast iron railings with finials to mid and top rails. The railings also incorporate shaped cast iron lamp posts. At the R end the forecourt railings return and abut the chapel front. At the L end is a monolithic square freestone pier with pyramid cap (the gate and the other pier have been removed since the previous survey in 1975).  

The entrance vestibule has a decorative tile floor and a ceiling rose. Opposite the entrance is a glazed panel with coloured glass. It is flanked by panel doors to the main chapel, and closed-string gallery stairs. The main chapel has scribed-plaster walls and boarded wainscot at ground and gallery level. The flat ceiling is on a plaster cornice, with central and subsidiary roses. A 3-sided raked gallery has cast-iron posts with moulded capitals, and a panelled front with low-relief foliage panels, projecting on brackets. A clock is in the centre. Behind the pulpit is an early C20 high elliptical arch with panelled reveals incorporating egg-and-dart moulding. It houses the organ. The ramped floor has pews with shaped ends, with similar pews to the gallery. The set fawr is later. Its back has panelling and an upper tier of balusters. The pulpit has a similar arrangement of panel and balusters, with central fret-cut panel. Outer stairs have turned balusters and newel. Against the rear wall, L of the pulpit, are memorial brass plaques to 1914-18 and 1939-45 wars.  

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