The Crescent Chapel, Newtown
History
page maintained by
David Peate © 2007
The History of Crescent Chapel
A history of the Crescent chapel, Newtown, has been published in paperback. Copies are available from David Peate. The price is £5.00. Postage in the UK is 50p. and overseas is £1.00.
Synopsis of the History of Crescent Chapel and Congregation
The congregation which was to form that of Crescent Chapel first gathered in the 1830s in secular buildings in Llanllwchaiarn and Newtown. There were chapels in the district for Welsh speaking Calvinistic Methodists but there was nothing to serve the ever-increasing number of monoglot English speakers. Finally, sufficient funds were gathered to have a meetinghouse built nearby. This was in Chapel Street where a church was erected in 1845 for the English Calvinistic Methodist movement. This earlier place of worship was situated on the corner of Chapel Street and Frankwell Street off Commercial Street. In 1856, the statistics were: Full Members, 70; in the Sabbath School, 259; and Congregation, 160.
The building in Chapel Street soon proved to be inadequate to accommodate the growing membership. A new church was constructed on the corner of Upper Bridge Street and Milford Road; the foundation stones were laid by that celebrated Welshman David Davies, topsawyer, M.P., and the Hon. F.S.A. Hanbury-Tracey, M.P., on 3rd May 1878. It was opened under the ministry of Rev. Edward Parry, M.A., in May 1879.
The late T. Walter Holmes-Evans described the premises as follows. "The chapel building and attached schoolrooms are intricately detailed in the decorated style with buttresses at the front corners of the chapel and between the side chapel and school rooms' windows. One schoolroom is situated at the west end of and at right angles to the chapel; the other runs along the north side of the chapel. A square tower rising with four pinnacles and a small spire caps the south-east corner of the chapel. The masonry of the construction is interlaced with sandstone dressing to the arrises, windows and entrances. Banding in the spire and roofs forms a special and distinctive feature of the whole. The spire is picked out in red sandstone and the roofs are particularised with mauve slating." A new organ was installed by Bishop & Son, London, in 1903. Although having reached its century, the organ is still sounding well according to our organist, George Morgan.
Two devastating blows were delivered to the chapel building in the opening years of the new millennium. The first served to soften us up and the second was determined to knock us down! Firstly, along with other chapels in the Connexion, the Crescent was surveyed in January 2000 with a view to recommending improvements to comply with health and safety regulations. The review resulted in an estimate for work which at today's (2006) rate would exceed £100,000 to accomplish. Our sister church at Bethel was in a similarly despairing position. Secondly, none of us will forget that fateful night in October 2002. The storm on the night of the 27th occasioned considerable damage in the area but the Crescent was the most badly affected building. A large part of the roof was blown off although this has since been replaced.
To say that we were devastated by the results of the storm is an understatement. However, a formula was agreed with our friends at Bethel which allowed the Crescent congregation immediate use of the New Road chapel. We settled in quite quickly and it is gratifying to record that the Crescent communicants and friends have been faithful in their continued and regular attendance in their new surroundings. This was despite the commencement of services on alternative months at 9.30 a.m. and 10.30 a.m. The synthesis of Bethel and Crescent has worked quite well.
It was proposed and accepted by the elders of Crescent and Bethel that the Bethel site should be sold and that the Crescent should be demolished. A new chapel would be built on the Crescent site with much needed amenities for community activities on the north (Llanllwchaiarn) side of the River Severn. It was better from a financial perspective to sell Bethel's site and to regroup on the location of the Crescent. However, there were so many objections to the disappearance of the Crescent building that the plan had to be abandoned. The objections came, of course, from people and organisations that had almost no interest in the building other than architectural. They do not have to dip their hands into their pockets to satisfy their cultural preferences. We do!
Our revised plan is to accommodate both Crescent and Bethel at the Crescent site after selling the Bethel church and land. The final paragraph of the history of the Crescent states: "It is likely that the phoenix of Crescent and Bethel (in whatever form it may take) will see its ascent from the ashes in the next couple of years. It is not really a new chapter in the life of the Crescent, it is merely a matter of removing the bookmark after an interlude and continuing worshipping more or less where we had left off".
Bethel chapel was sold with vacant possession on 4th September 2006. Accommodation has been offered to members of Crescent and Bethel by our friends, the Welsh Congregationalists, at Capel Coffa on Milford Road, Newtown. From the service on 3rd September onwards, Crescent services will be held there at 9.30 am.
List of Ministers
Penygloddfa English Calvinistic Methodist Chapel, Newtown (1845-1878)
Crescent Calvinistic Methodist / Presbyterian Chapel, Newtown (1878-present)
Chapel Street, Penygloddfa
1846-1851 Rev. Dr. Owen Thomas
1852-1858 Rev. John Pugh, B.A.
1859-1860 Rev. David Charles Davies, M.A.
1860-1864 Rev. William Hughes B.A.
1867-1874 Rev. Thomas Jones Wheldon, B.A.
Chapel Street and Crescent
1878-1919 Rev. Edward A. Parry, M.A.
Crescent
1919-1920 Rev. Stanley Owen B.A.
1921-1952 Rev. David James, M.A.
1955-1959 Rev. Derek E. Saint, B.A.
1961-1968 Rev. R. Leslie Jones, B.A., B.D.
1971-1978 Rev. Trefor Hughes Armstrong, B.A., B.D.
1979-1986 Rev. Stanley G. Lewis, B.A., B.D.
1987-1997 Rev. Phillip Charles Lloyd de la Haye
1998 -present Rev. Edwin O. Hughes, B.Ed., B.Th.