Watching the Welsh Chapel Walls Crumble

Posted on September 11th, 2007 filed in Chapel & Church, History, Merthyr Tydfil, Photos, Wales

The walls of the Disgwylfa Chapel in Merthyr Vale slowly crumble.

Cement and render peel away revealing the stone foundation underneath.

This Chapel was built one hundred years ago.

On this the Centenary year since it was built it seems to be ‘giving up the ghost’.

There is an eerie, ghost-like quality to this grimey old Valleys Chapel.

The Chapel is situated adjacent to the small village post office.

It is not difficult to imagine the former glories of this Chapel or what contribution it made to this village.

Climb the embankment a few feet from the Chapel and you can see the familiar site of a cemetery.

Therein lie the children’s graves in the nearby village of Aberfan.

Thousands of these Chapel buildings were built in Wales during the past two to three hundred years.

Merthyr Vale is not unique in having a Chapel crumble on its doorstep.

The same story is repeated the length and breadth of this country.

Thus day by day we are losing part of our national architectural heritage.

The Welsh word “disgwylfa” translates as “watch tower”.

It is painful to witness the Welsh Chapel walls crumble in our communities.