Big Welsh Chapel

 

I've featured quite a few chapels on my blogs now, but for some reason I'm still not bored of them. I think in spite of them being very much samey in layout, each one has a unique character. I'm not religious, but nevertheless, I find churches and chapels to be quite peaceful places, and the decay is often quite photogenic. This one is particularly gorgeous. I'd seen photos online before, so I was very excited to finally get a chance to see it, and I was pretty damn lucky because it was purchased by a very ambitious new owner mere months after our visit.

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

There are older photos online but as you can see, the street has changed more than the actual building! 

Let's slip inside!

 

The chapel was initially constructed in 1862 for the Calvinist Methodist denomination. I did a quick Google search out of curiosity, and discovered that there are actually 45,000 denominations globally, and in all honesty I don't understand it. Calvinism pops up in the 18th Century, named after the theologian John Calvin. It seems to place more emphasis on the sovereignty of God and the overall absence of free will. God cannot give us free will because it overrides his sovereignty. Although technically, saying God can't do something also overrides his sovereignty too.

 

Calvinism seems to think that nothing is left to chance or to free will and that we're born preordained to eternal life or eternal damnation. So what is the point? Surely this means that God is the author and instigator of human sin. Why punish a bad person with Hell if they're just a meat puppet with all of their evil actions being conducted by God? Surely the existence of punishment contradicts complete control. That's like, if you think masturbation is a sin, blaming your dick for the crime of ejaculating, when you're the one wanking it off. Maybe God should be punishing himself really.

 

Hmm... contradictory and hypocrisy in religion. Alert the media.

 

 

These old light switches are pretty cool.

 

 

The chapel itself is absolutely gorgeous!

 

It was initially built by an architect named Thomas Thomas, an unchallenged master of chapel architecture in the 1860s. He's responsible for a total of 119 chapels across Wales, and was also a minister at Landore in Swansea until his forced retirement in 1875 following some controversy over his ownership of some sub-standard workers houses. I guess it's hard to talk about doing good deeds to get into Heaven when everyone knows that you make your tenants live in squalor.

 

I don't know how much of this chapel is original, because in 1893 it was significantly enlarged. And I don't think it was a simple renovation, because the date on the exterior is 1893. That would indicate that this is pretty much a whole new building, right?

 

 

The numbering of pews is a callback to an era where one could rent a pew, have a deed to it, and even leave it to someone in their will. Naturally the best seats had the highest rents, and hilariously there are a few historical accounts of violent disputes over pew ownership.

 

 

There was once an organ down there, and I happen to have found a picture of it in a photo from the last ever service in 2010. 

 

(Photo not mine)

But if anyone is concerned about the whereabouts of the organ, don't worry! It was safely removed from the chapel after its closure, and is now on display in Kordel in Germany. I have no urbex pins in that area as of yet, but never say never. I'm sure a google search will reveal some pleasant results. 

 

The chapel does have a bit of an interesting history. In 1913 it was burned down by a man called William Alexander Booth Ross, who is believed to have been looking for money, and started the fire when he couldn't find any. The chapel was completely gutted although somehow the pulpits bible survived, which absolutely baffles me! I mean, photos of the chapel exist after the fire, and it's quite obviously wrecked.

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

So the main four walls of the chapel survived but the gutted interior is visible through the windows. There's another photo of the interior taken from the pulpit. 

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

But check it out. Even a horrific fire couldn't stop the congregation. 

Such devastation makes the current condition of the chapel quite remarkable. Like it's genuinely hard to believe that this is the same building. A lot of effort clearly went into restoring it, and it's pretty incredible.

I was quite fascinated by William Alexander Booth Ross, mainly because I heard conflicting aspects of his story. Some say that it was only assumed that he'd set fire to the church due to being unable to find money, while others say that he made a habit out of doing stuff like this. Wikipedia says he was local to the chapel, but I found a postcard from the era that specifies that he was from London.

 

(image not mine, obviously)

So I looked up his criminal record online, and it turns out that he did five years in prison for two cases of arson and sacrilege. So this wasn't the only chapel he set fire to. He was probably having a bit of a mini rampage when he got caught on his second target, but there's no source that gives us a definitive motive. Why would he steal a congregations collection box? That's usually about enough dosh to buy a couple of chicken bakes at Greggs. But Williams criminal record lists his occupation as a baker, so he clearly wasn't unemployed, nor was he in any shortage of chicken bakes. Census information from his childhood shows that he grew up in Islington, and had two younger siblings, Ernest and Hilda, but also a 22-year-old servant called Minnie, so the family clearly wasn't poor. 

 

But then I found marriage records from 1920, after his release from prison. This mentioned that he was a widow, as was his new wife Mary, who was actually eleven years older than him. If he'd lost a wife then maybe that was the cause of a downward spiral in regards to his mental state. He seems to have bounced back though, as his marriage record to Mary lists his occupation as a kitchen porter. Curiously his fathers occupation is listed as a "Traveler," but often this was a legitimate occupation in that era. If a company was making a product in a particular town but wanted to reach a wider audience, they would send a traveler, often with some product samples, to travel the country seeking out businesses who would potentially sell their product. I could be wrong though. Maybe he dropped everything and went on to pursue a nomadic lifestyle.

 

It's quite fascinating though. I feel like William Alexander Booth Ross has a story just waiting to be told. 

 

 

The comfiest seats are at the front. 

 

 

I found out that in the later 20th Century, Aled Jones sang her in his childhood choirboy days. For those who are scratching their heads wondering who the Hell that is, he's the kid who sang "Walking in the Air" in "The Snowman," a retro Christmas cartoon from the 1980s. The song made it into the charts at the time and catapulted Aled Jones to stardom. He's sung for the Queen and everything. 

 

Ultimately he ended up being a TV presenter, doing a lot of work for BBC and ITV, and given my predilection towards dark humour, and because of recent events and also revelations about not-so-recent events, I was tempted to make a joke about him probably being a sex offender... but then I thought, no, don't make that joke. I know I like dark humour but throwing that sort of stuff around is a little too far, right?

Then I scrolled a bit further down and found out that he actually was suspended in 2017 for sexual harassment! Well fucking hell, am I psychic or is this shit just getting predictable? 

I also found out that Nightwish have covered "Walking in the Air," which I had no idea about! I dabbled in Nightwish back in the day, but somehow that slipped by my teenage goth ears back then. I was more of a fan of Lacuna Coil, who everyone said was a Nightwish rip-off because Heaven forbid another woman can be good at singing. Poor Lacuna Coil couldn't get a break. I saw them live when I was eighteen, and one guy got really angry when they did a cover of Enjoy the Silence, saying that they had no right to copy Depeche Mode. I never understood that. I mean, if you are going to launch a war on cover songs, then you've left it a bit late there.

 

But I digress!

 

 

Interestingly church pews didn't exist for the first thousand years of Christianity. The congregation would stand while the preacher would resist the urge to stage dive and crowd surf while speaking the word of the Lord. It seems that pews came about around the same time as the Protestant reformation. Gone was the confession booth and other fun Catholic things, and all that they had left was long sermons, at which point the churchgoer said "Well this is dull. If only I was allowed to sit."

 

 

There's an old newspaper here from 1997. It looks like there's some sort of protest about foreign meat. I don't think it really matters to the cow which country it's slaughtered in, but hey-ho.

 

Here's a little Welsh church book from 1975. The title translates to "Day by Day" and it lists April, May and June. Is this a diary or a planner or something? If that's the case, why is there an author mentioned on the cover?

Back in the old days a chapel provided a social hub for these small rural communities, but as the world changed, so did peoples beliefs and choices on what to do in their free time. Congregations have dwindled in the modern era, and many chapels across rural Wales have closed their doors for good. This one had its last service in 2010. From that point onward it sat there silently rotting, attracting pigeons, rats and smellier things, like urban explorers. 

But there is hope for this place. Mere months after our visit, it was purchased by Keith Brymber Jones, the star of Chanel 4's "Great Pottery Throw Down." He and his wife Marjory are sick of living in the South East of England, and are all set to fix up this chapel as a place to live and also use as a studio. That's actually really cool. Often with these abandoned places, it ends with a mysterious dodgy arson and housing development. I'm not religious, but chapels are just too pretty to lose really. I'm glad this one is being given new life.

 

The chapel is surprisingly spacious beyond the main servitude-to-a-genocidal-sky-daddy area.

 

 

There's this big area at the back. 

 

 

What's intriguing is that it has an old curtain rail that could create an enclosed space at the back of the room.

 

 

There's also this really nice cabinet. 

 

 

And here we have a little kitchen area. 

 

So yeah, it definitely seems fit for home conversion. It has all the necessary amenities and stuff. It just needs a little TLC.

 

 

Now this is gorgeous!

 

 Moving on upstairs, we have the best part of any derelict building, the toilets.

 

 I absolutely love this little upstairs kitchen area, with nature clawing its way past the tattered remains of the curtain. And a spider seems to have made a web there too, which is pretty cool. 

Then there's this cool wooden gate over another staircase...

 

 

This leads to my favourite part of the chapel, a school area. 

 

I don't know why but I just love this big vast room. It has a cool vibe to it. Above me I could hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet and realised that the ceiling had pigeons living in it. Pigeons, or an attic midget. 

Of course, back in the day this would have been crammed with the semen demons of the local community. I'm not sure if it was an actual school or just a Sunday School, where the children would be kept busy with songs and stuff while the adults attended regular church service. I think there would have been other activities too, but as a child I attended Sunday School up until the tender age of seven, so my memories of this undoubtedly riveting period of my life are hazy.

But I do have a photo of this hall from 2010 that gives us some idea of what it would have been like.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

Evidently it's been cleared out, but it's fairly easy to imagine how this place would have been. The tables and benches are all neatly arranged around the sides, but presumably they would be brought into the centre of the hall and arranged for all the little crotchfruits activities.

 

There's this little ancient back bit that has a few old trinkets lying around.

 

There are some old toilets down here too.

I have no idea what this orange powder is, but I wasn't about to touch it. It looks like Donald Trump exploded in here. 

But the toilets are still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs.

And that would be that. Time to slip outside.

So here's the back of the chapel, with its entrance to the school area. It's quite interesting really. To those who came here, they may well have perceived them as two separate buildings without ever guessing that they were connected internally, if they gave it much thought at all. 

As far as urbex goes, this place is now off limits. It's been purchased for a residential conversion, and I think you'd have to be a bit of a cunt to try sneak in now. But then it's not exactly hard to find a cunt in the urbex world. Nevertheless, I can at least try to appeal to the decency of the average human. I'm just happy I got to see this place when I did.

So while I'm giving my attention to this chunk of Wales, my next blog post will be some kind of super villain headquarters thing, and then a cute little bunker. They'll be pretty interesting. In the meantime, you can keep up to date on blog updates by following my social media. Instagram is where I'm the most active, and Threads and Vero too. I post on Reddit sometimes, and I occasionally remember that I have Twitter.

And then there's Facebook. What a shit bunch to choose from. I miss the old days of social media. Bring back Myspace. Actually I kinda miss Faceparty, which I was on when I was a wee baby gothling, and that shit's still going. It's gotta be the only platform from the early Internet that still exists. Totally making myself a Faceparty, because fuck it. Time for a mid-life crisis.

Anyway, thanks for reading!