Ebenezer Chapel, Inkerman Street, Llanelli, Carmarthenshire

Description

Name: Ebenezer

Denomination: Welsh Independent

Built: 1881

Photography: John Ball
Date: 29 March 2012
Camera: Nikon D50 digital SLR

Note 1: Built in 1881 by the most prolific designer of chapels in Wales, the Independent Minister Thomas Thomas of Landore. it is recognisably his by the use of a great central recessed arch breaking into the pediment or gable of the main front. This spans one of his usual arched Venetian central windows which sits on a projecting block string-course with uprights supported on stone-corbels; all features of Italian Renaissance origin popularised by Thomas throughout Wales. The classical gable urn capped by a spirelet finial is a distinctively Thomas addition. Typical of Thomas's late work is the variation on Florentine tracery, in the head of the sidelights of the Venetian Window, which produces a teardrop shape and the elongated or stilted upper height of the central light of the window which is Byzantine in origin. This is an economical rendering of Thomas's last main chapel design which often had his later wide central arches flanked by attached classical columns and carrying a wide ashlar entablature, executed in cut Bath Stone, which also circled and emphasised the head of the great arch. The seating capacity of Ebenezer was recorded as 800 in 1905, a fairly average size for a chapel in Llanelli or Wales but with a capacity of 20 the Schoolroom provision was the smallest in the town. [Source: Coflein database of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (accessed 9 Feb 2016)]

Note 2: Ebenezer, designed by the prolific Thomas Thomas, [is] a typical late 19th century Welsh chapel building. The interior is a work of art, lovely use of wood and a great organ moved from nearby Park Church. [Extracted from personal email correspondence with Huw Edwards, dated 26 September 2011]

• http://www.jlb2011.co.uk/walespic/churches/llanelli3.htm (link opens in new window)