Rhydybriw Chapel of Ease, Sennybridge, Breconshire

Description

Denomination: Anglican

Dedication: Unknown

Built: c. 1860

Image 1:

Photograph Church in Wales website

Note 1: Rhydybriw Chapel of Ease [is a] Victorian chapel located within Sennybridge Camp. It seems very likely that the chapel was built originally for the family living in Llywncyntefin mansion. The present chapel dates from around 1860. At one time the chapel was a chapel-of-ease attached to the parish of Llywel, then sometime around the Second World War it became a chapel-of-ease of the parish of Defynnog becoming a part of the parish of Blaenwysg in 2000. [Source: Church in Wales website, accessed October 2014]

Note 2: Rhidybriw, (or Ysclydach), a chapelry in the parish of Llywell, hundred of Devynnock and borough of Brecknock, county Brecon, 12 miles W. of Brecknock. The village is situated among the hills, near the river Usk, and the line of the Roman road Via Julia Montana. Some of the inhabitants are engaged in the neighbouring woollen mills. The living is a perpetual curacy in the diocese of St David, value £145, in the patronage of the Vicar of Llywell. [Source: The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland 1868, transcribed on the GENUKI website]

Note 3: Ysclydach Hamlet — Popn. 159 males, 168 females: Total 327.

Rhydybryw Chapel of Ease: Endowed: land £185. Space: free 12; other 192. Present: aft. 200.

[Source: The Illustrated History and Biography of Brecknockshire, by Edwin Poole, published by the author, Brecon, 1866]

Image 2:

Rhydybriw Chapel (old postcard)

Note 4: In the eastern part of the parish [of Llywel] is a chapel called Rhydybriw, originally built for the accommodation of the Llwyncyntefin family; it was renovated in 1860 at a cost of £600. There is a movement on foot to build a third church in this extensive parish; through the lapse of a lease of the rectorial tithes, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have expressed their readiness to endow the proposed new church, as soon as the parishioners have erected the building, and a district is assigned for it. [Source: The Religious Census of 1851 – A Calendar of the Returns Relating to Wales, Volume I South Wales, edited by Ieuan Gwynedd Jones and David Williams, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1976]

Note 5: Capel Rhyd-y-Briw, Chapel of Ease, now Rhydybriw Church – This is a small plain chapel of ease in Is Clydach [sic] parish, set on the north bank of the Usk opposite Sennybridge. It is plainly a post-medieval building, presumably eighteenth or nineteenth century, and the earlier walling apparent in the north wall need not be of any antiquity. The chapel is depicted on the 1st edition OS County series (Brecknock. XXVI.12 1886) as 'Capel Rhyd-y-Briw' and is now shown as 'Rhydybriw Church'. The chapel, dedication unknown, consists of an undivided nave and chancel with a south porch and north vestry. It has plain pointed windows, a single bell set in a slight projection of the west gable and an iron cross on the east gable. In 1970 the interior was plain and bare, with dark pews. It stands within a small roughly square graveyard containing a tomb of 1766 and stones of 1778 and 1769.

[Source: Coflein: online database of the Royal Commission for the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales]

• http://www.jlb2011.co.uk/walespic/churches/rhydybriw1.htm (link opens in new window)