Westgate Presbyterian Church and railings, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire

Entry Name: Westgate Presbyterian Church and railings

Listing Date: 6 December 1999

Last Amended: 29 July 2005

Grade: II

Source: Cadw

Source ID: 22764

Building Class: Religious, Ritual and Funerary

Also known as: Westgate Chapel

ID on this website: 300022764

Location: Situated on the W side of Pembroke on a corner at the junction of The Parade and Westgate Hill, just S of the castle.

County: Pembrokeshire

Town: Pembroke

Community: Pembroke (Penfro)

Community: Pembroke

Built-Up Area: Pembroke

Traditional County: Pembrokeshire

Tagged with: Chapel

History

Calvinistic Methodist chapel of 1866 extended 1875-6 by K. W. Ladd of Pembroke Dock. Alterations to vestry 1913 by C T Hall of Pembroke Dock. The original chapel was called Bethel and was built in 1826. It stood on the other side of the street, as marked on the Orielton estate sale map of 1857, when described as a house with two rooms below and Methodist chapel on the first floor. It was sold for demolition in 1866 the roof timbers called nearly new. The c. 1865 town map shows the chapel on the present site, presumably the new building. The new chapel cost £2,100. A watercolour kept at the chapel shows it as now but with plain gable front and no stair tower. The new front with tower for gallery stairs was added in 1875-6 by K. W. Ladd, apparently reusing details including the date inscription from the front of 1866. The chapel has been known as Westgate Church since the early C20.

Exterior

Chapel. coursed rock-faced Pembrokeshire grey limestone with red brick dressings and slate roof. Limestone quoins, raised plinth. Projecting gable front with coped shouldered gable and gabled kneelers. Single stair tower projects sideways to right, this with canted hipped roof. Italian Romanesque style with big centre triplet of 3 arched lights, the surrounds and two column piers all bi-colour, red brick and grey-brown sandstone. Centre light has stilted head. Sloping brick with black brick patterns below windows down to stone sills. Below, a carved double scroll, the upper one inscribed 'Westgate', the longer lower one 'Calvinistic Methodist Chapel 1828 1866'. Ground floor between two narrow single lights, with bicolour heads but sandstone sides and sills. The door is doubly recessed, outer arch bi-colour brick and limestone, arched on underside, pointed on upper side, on chamfered limestone jambs. Inner arch has chamfered jambs and red brick arch with stone keystone. Double doors with diagonal boarding, under sandstone flat lintel on two shaped sandstone corbels. Brick infill above with pattern in black brick. Matching doorway in rebated left side wall of front projection.
Stair tower to right has window similar to those on ground floor, at mid level, and another similar window set higher in side wall.
Chapel is set in a slope with basement schoolroom, exposed to rightside. Two storey, 4-window range with tall arched upper windows, sandstone frames, bi-colour arches, and cambered headed basement windows in similar frames, door in grey limestone frame between third and fourth windows. Plain rendered rear wall.
Upper side has similar 4 arched windows, but with small gabled single-storey projection between third and fourth, built across basement area. Arched door in limestone frame to front. All windows are metal, probably mid C20 replacements.
Iron railings around interrupted by paired grey stone gatepiers with painted square slightly brattished caps, possibly of terracotta. Fleur-de-lys finials to rails, on grey stone coping.

Interior

Interior with plastered walls and segmental pointed ceiling in plaster panels divided by thin moulded ribs. behind pulpit a big ornate 3-bay plaster pilastrade with flat cornice. Single end gallery on two iron columns, with deep boarded overhang and front in panels with diagonal boarding and stop-chamfered surrounds. Lobby beneath with 2 doors and octofoil centre window. Pews in 3 blocks, inward facing each side of pulpit. Roll-moulded backs with vertical boarding, similar ends with low doors. Pulpit has been moved forward to accommodate a big organ partly obscuring the rear pilastrade, flanked by raked choir seats. Organ is tall with Gothic case with blind colonnade below painted pipes. Matching marble memorials to the Rev John Rees Owen (d1888) and the Rev William Powell (d1894) each side. Simple platform with side steps and rail on Gothic iron standards with leaf-scroll brackets. Pulpit behind is ornate with 3-panel front, fretwork gothic panels over diagonally-boarded panels, similar sides, and heavy moulded cornice. Early C20 coloured glass in windows flanking pulpit. basement schoolroom has 6 iron columns.

Reasons for Listing

Included for the special architectural interest of its Romanesque-style facade, prominently sited on approach to Pembroke Castle, and for the largely unaltered interior of definite quality and character.

External Links

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