We continue our regular look at Merthyr’s chapels with an aptly named chapel in the run up to Christmas – Bethlehem Chapel in Caepantywyll.
Bethlehem Chapel was one of the oldest Welsh Calvinistic Methodist movements in Merthyr.
In 1840, a number of the congregation of Moriah Chapel, Cefn Coed decided to start a new cause in the rapidly growing area of Caepantywyll, a chapel was subsequently built in 1841 and called Bethlehem.
During the mid 1800’s, the residents of Caepantywyll, mostly employees of Cyfarthfa Iron Works, had established a unique educational network, with three ‘front room’ schools as well as six schools held in public houses.
Bethlehem Chapel was in the forefront of the education of the residents of Caepantywyll, and indeed its first minister Rev John Roberts was a strong leader in education.
Rev Roberts, who was also known by the bardic name Ieuan Gwyllt, was also famous as a musician. As well as composing many famous hymns, he founded the Cymanfa Ganu and also in 1859 he produced “Llyfr Tonau Cynulleidfaol” which took him six years to complete.
The publication of this book began a new era of Welsh congregational hymn singing.
By the 1960’s, with the number of residents of Caepantywyll decreasing, the small congregation dropped to such an extent that the chapel closed and services were held in the vestry of the chapel until that too closed in 1979. The chapel was demolished in the early 1980’s.
In January 1835, following Josiah John Guest’s return – unopposed- as Merthyr Tydfil’s MP, he and Lady Charlotte hosted a ball in the granaries above the Dowlais stabling to celebrate. Charlotte organised the decorations, which included patriotic transparencies proclaiming ‘W.R.’ [William Rex] and EGLWYS Y BRENEN [Church and King] drawn by the clerks from the ironworks office and hung where they caught the light. Josiah John’s Arms -‘with a Lyre and a fleur de lys’ according to the Merthyr Guardian, but when had he acquired the right to an heraldic device? – were chalked on the floor. The Rev Evan Jenkins, Rector of Dowlais, lent the Guests the church chandeliers, evergreens bedecked the walls and the band of the Cardiff militia provided music. The local gentry, whether or not they shared Guest’s political views, came in anticipation of a good party. By all accounts, the weather was vile, with thick snow delaying the London mail coach. In consequence, the local paper had much fun at the expense of a party of urban sophisticates who arrived too late for the fashionable quadrilles and had to make do with country dances ‘like Sir Roger de Coverley and Boulanger’.
(Information from the Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian, Glamorgan, Monmouth, and Brecon Gazette, Saturday 24 January 1835 and Lady Charlotte Guest, Extracts from her Journal, ed. the Earl of Bessborough (John Murray: London, 1950, pp 37-38, 19 – 20 January 1835).