English Presbyterian Church - May 24

[BikinGlynn]

English Presbyterian Church

​

Hello peeps been a bit busy of late hence the lack of posts but heres one I finally popped into this one on a recent visit to wales.

​

The English Presbyterian Church, Cowell Street, was built in 1873 in the Gothic style of the gable entry type, by architect Alfred Bucknall of Swansea. The church was altered in 1893 and enlarged in 1902. The steeply gabled head of the central doorway could have been inspired by pictures of the porches at Sienna Cathedral and the flanking small arches of the front and the tall lancet windows of the side are in Early English Gothic style of the early thirteenth-century.

​

The elaboration of finish with the curved finials, or crockets, marching down the front gable and porch is quite sophisticated for a gothic chapel of this date. In 1905 the seated accommodation was recorded as 400 which was about half the size of the great majority of Welsh-language chapels in the town although the Sunday School could accommodate 350 which was fairly average for the town.

Thanks For Looking

​

 

[Stealthstar79]

Beautiful!

 

[night crawler]

Sad end for a church, looks like it ended up getting burnt down, must have looked nice when it was first built

 

[verdigris]

fab photos - so dramatic. Thanks for the history and the architectural details
this must have been a very imposing church, rather different from the standard and very modest Welsh 'chapel'
difficult to imagine a congregation of 400 nowadays

 

[BikinGlynn]

Sad end for a church, looks like it ended up getting burnt down, must have looked nice when it was first built

Thanks mate

 

[BikinGlynn]

fab photos - so dramatic. Thanks for the history and the architectural details
this must have been a very imposing church, rather different from the standard and very modest Welsh 'chapel'
difficult to imagine a congregation of 400 nowadays

Thank you

 

[Hayman]

fab photos - so dramatic. Thanks for the history and the architectural details
this must have been a very imposing church, rather different from the standard and very modest Welsh 'chapel'
difficult to imagine a congregation of 400 nowadays

With those who once attended churches in large numbers as a matter of course dying off, and the following generations no longer needing Christianity to be part of their lives, what should be done with such no longer used buildings? Should they be demolished in the way redundant factories and railway stations - many of high architectural merit - are flattened, to be replaced by mundane housing accommodation, shops or new warehouses? Even converting old churches and chapels into homes somehow defiles them. Planners seem to be against such conversions. And the cost of using them for local community purposes is often too great for consideration. Gradual collapse seems the only future for many of them.

 

[verdigris]

With those who once attended churches in large numbers as a matter of course dying off, and the following generations no longer needing Christianity to be part of their lives, what should be done with such no longer used buildings? Should they be demolished in the way redundant factories and railway stations - many of high architectural merit - are flattened, to be replaced by mundane housing accommodation, shops or new warehouses? Even converting old churches and chapels into homes somehow defiles them. Planners seem to be against such conversions. And the cost of using them for local community purposes is often too great for consideration. Gradual collapse seems the only future for many of them.

well you raise many interesting questions. I can only suggest 'it depends'.

 

[Hayman]

well you raise many interesting questions. I can only suggest 'it depends'.

In 1974 - when on my overland journey from Lesotho to Senegal - I stayed at a semi-derelict mission in Porto Novo, Dahomey, west Africa. I wrote of it:
"Corrugated iron sheeting that had all but lost its coat of red lead paint lay, wallowing, across warped rafters. An odd length of guttering served to keep the roof-caught rain off the first floor steps.
Wooden balcony railings, softened with time, and a greying Madonna-and-child statue – placed as it was, between a pair of grass sprouting asbestos flower pots – gave a final touch to the scene, one of gentle decay."