4843

 

II  

Designated  

30/11/1966  

30/12/2004  

Capel Soar  

 

Gwynedd  

Talsarnau  

 

Soar  

261655  

335410  

 

Located to N side of a narrow country road which leads through the small hamlet of Soar.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Mid C19 Wesleyan chapel, dated 1839 and a good example of the local type of meeting house. Extended and two porches added in 1863.  

Gable entry Wesleyan chapel, aligned roughly NW-SE, entry in the SE gable. Built of mortared rubble masonry, the entrance porch with slate hung and grit rendered elevations. Slate roof with tiled coping and advanced eaves and verges. The entrance elevation has two gabled porches, each with a double boarded door under a round arched overlight. Between the porches is a railed enclosure and a pair of round-headed sash windows of 24-panes with voussoir heads and slate sills; between the windows is a datestone which bears the inscription: SOAR / Capel y Trefnyddi on / Wesleyaidd adeiladwydd / 1839 / A helaethwyd / 1863. The opposite gable has 4 similar windows and the lateral walls have similarly detailed ground floor windows to each of 3 bays, the first floor windows are 16-pane horned sashes. There is a single storey vestry built at the N corner of the chapel which has an outer entrance via a porch in the SE angle. There are 2 windows in the SE wall and one in the NW wall, large paned sashes with margin panes.  

Each entrance opens into a small vestibule, with gallery steps leading up to the outer walls and doorways into the chapel beyond. There are 3 ranks pews, slightly raking to the rear (SE) with set fawr and pulpit at NW, opposite the entrance. The set fawr has side entrances and an advanced front, the angles have chamfered newels and the top panels have a pierced floriate design under a raking rail. The pulpit has side entrances of 6 steps, shaped newels posts and alternate tall and short balusters under a moulded rail. The front of the pulpit has a shaped coping over pierced facing panels corbelled out over a panelled plinth. The walls have ashlar scoring with tongue and groove panelling to the lower part, to the rear of the pulpit is a moulded plaster panel of 3 trefoils under a corbelled, moulded pediment with shaped finials. The gallery is has a rounded end to SE and is on iron columns with shaped brackets and corbelled base. The facing panels have diamond motifs inset with a pierced design. The ceiling has deeply recessed panels between moulded dividers; the central panels have diamond panels with moulded surrounds, each of which has a moulded floriate ventilator.  

Listed as an ambitiously scaled mid C19 rural chapel retaining good original character externally and internally.