Pontypridd United Church including attached second hall, Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taff

History

An English Congregational chapel built as a daughter chapel of the Independent, Welsh-speaking Capel Sardis. The chapel was built in 1887-8 (date on foundation tablet) to the design of Potts, Sulman & Hemmings. The chapel included a separate hall and Sunday school as part of a unified composition, a feature then becoming fashionable in chapel architecture. The same firm added a second hall in 1906. In the 1970s the chapel combined with the demolished Carmel Baptist Chapel to become a Baptist and United Reformed Church.

Exterior

A mainly geometrical style chapel of snecked, rock-faced stone with lighter dressings and impost bands of red conglomerate, and slate roof behind coped gables. Attached to the rear (N) end of the chapel is an integral Sunday School, while on the E (downhill) side, entered from Penuel Lane, is the second hall added in 1906.

The entrance faces Penuel Lane on the S side. It has 3 main bays under a gable, with single-bay aisles. The main front has set-back buttresses rising to gablets, above which are octagonal turrets that turn ashlar with blind arched panels and pyramidal caps. Similar buttresses flank the central bay. A centrally placed doorway is brought forward beneath a gablet, and its 2-centred head incorporates a crocketed frieze. Pairs of cusped lights in the flanking bays are also brought forward, under steep lean-to slate roofs, while a moulded sill band continues to the aisle on the L side. The upper windows are 3-light, the central window being much taller and transomed. The aisle to the L is set back and has a short angle buttress incorporating a foundation tablet. The aisle has a narrow lancet at the lower level and a larger pointed window above. The aisle on the R side is also set back, and has a splayed angle under a hipped roof. In the angle is a doorway with boarded door under an arch framing a tympanum of relief foliage. A small tablet with relief foliage is above the doorway.

The L side facing Gelliwastad Road, is a 5-bay aisle with lean-to roof and stepped buttresses. The taller and wider gabled bay to the R (housing a gallery stair) is brought forward with angle buttresses. A doorway lower R projects under a raked stone hood, and has a crocketed frieze to the lintel and upper portion of the jambs. A small quatrefoil window in a square panel is to its L. Above is a pair of pointed windows with plain sill band, then a wheel window in the gable below an apex finial. The remaining bays have pairs of plain pointed windows in the lower level with sill and impost bands, and 2 pairs of cusped lights under flat heads to the gallery. At the L end is the lower integral hall and Sunday school with its gable at R angles to the main chapel and facing the road. The central portion with 5-light window is brought forward under a plain band and is flanked by stepped buttresses. Set back on the L side is a doorway under a gablet with blank shield and ribbons dated 1887. The double doors are replaced. A continuous roof light is on the L roof slope.

The R aisle has a wider bay to the end housing the gallery stair, with a small lancet below a pair of simple pointed windows. Further R are 3 buttressed aisle bays similar to the L side, and beyond them a 4th blind gabled bay. Below it is a projecting link to the added 2-storey hall. The hall and link are at a lower level due to the steep fall of the ground on this side of the building. The link has a mullioned window and doorway. The hall has a 2-storey 5-light canted bay window continuous across the front under a hipped roof, transomed to the lower storey. Further mullioned windows are in the R side wall.

Interior

The vestibule has decorative tile floors and half-lit doors to the main chapel and the stair lobbies. These have open-well stairs with stone treads and risers, steel balusters and newels with moulded hand rail.

The main chapel is well lit and is dominated by its 3-sided raked gallery and full-height 4-bay arcades. The arcades have polygonal cast iron columns supporting the gallery and are carried up as round Tuscan columns with wooden arches, which have open quatrefoils in the spandrels. Spanning these arcades is a 5-bay boarded wagon roof with moulded tie beams and king posts. The gallery is further supported by transverse beams from the columns to the wall, which have open arcading above the beams. The gallery front is panelled, with open quatrefoils and a clock by Benson of London opposite the pulpit.

The polygonal pulpit has relief foliage panels below open pointed quatrefoils and is flanked by steps with turned balusters and newels. In front of the pulpit is an added open baptistery. Behind the pulpit is a boarded screen crowned by a Gothic canopy with cresting and finials. The pews are plain with moulded ends incorporating blind quatrefoil roundels. The windows have coloured glass. The organ, to the R of the pulpit, is by James Conacher & Sons of Huddersfield.

The original hall and Sunday school has a 5-bay roof with segmental steel girder trusses which have open scrollwork in the spandrels.

Reasons for Listing

Listed for architectural interest as a Gothic chapel in a prominent location, and for its spacious interior, especially the fine gallery and arcades.

External Links

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