Pentre-Ty-Gwyn Chapel, Pentre-Ty-Gwyn, near Llandovery, Carmarthenshire

Description

Name: Pentre-Ty-Gwyn Chapel

Denomination: Welsh Independent

Built: 1749

Rebuilt: 1840 & 1876

Photograph 1: Google StreetView
Date: August 2011
Camera: StreetView

Photograph 2: Adrian Parry
Date: 9 May 2016
Camera: Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z2 digital

Note 1: Pentre-ty-Gwyn Chapel was built in 1749 and rebuilt in 1840. The present chapel, dated 1840, is built in the Simple Round-Headed style of the long wall entry type with a half-hipped roof. The façade is dominated by two tall pulpit windows to the centre, flanked by two doors and gallery windows to the outer bays. These pulpit windows are accentuated with florentine tracery to the tops and coloured glass to the marginal glazing. The westerly end elevation is slate-hung. [Source: Coflein online database of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (accessed 30 May 2016)]

Note 2: Problems started when the next leader appointed to lead the church [at Cefn Arthen], David Thomas, brought the theological emphasis back to Calvinism. A parting of the ways gradually became inevitable, and it was after this time that the Calvinist party began meeting separately at Glynpentan farm in the hamlet of Babel in July 1739. One of those to do so was long-standing church elder John Williams, Pantycelyn - the father of William Williams, soon to become one of the greatest hymn writers of Wales. John Williams died soon afterwards in 1742 aged 86, and in 1749 his widow Dorothy and already well-known son William gave to the new work at Glynpentan a parcel of Pantycelyn land on which to build a chapel of their own. In this way the chapel at Pentretygwyn came into existence in 1750, a mile or so from Cefnarthen as the crow flies. [Source: Welldigger website (accessed 30 May 2016)]

• http://www.jlb2011.co.uk/walespic/churches/llanfairarybryn2.htm (link opens in new window)