Name: Pentre Llifior Methodist Church
Built: 1798 Rebuilt / Restored: 1875 Photography: Ellie Thomas Date: 16 March 2008 Camera: Pentacon Praktica DCZ 5.8 compact digital ![]() Note 1: Pentre Llifior is an elegant red-brick Georgian chapel built in 1798 with a classically-derived proportion. It is the oldest surviving Wesleyan chapel in Wales. The chapel has round-arched window openings containing interlacing tracery, the two roadside windows with shutters, and flanking a recent circular plaque. There is a lean-to twentieth century brick porch in contrasting proportion and style against a gable facade. The Georgian interior has been preserved including rows of box pews with enamelled numbering and a gallery supported by two slim columns extending along the back wall. Pentre llifior is now Grade 2 Listed as a good example of a Wesleyan chapel with its original nineteenth century fittings. [Source: Coflein database of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (accessed 3 Jan 2016)] ![]()
Note 2: This roadside chapel dates from 1798 and is Wales' second oldest Wesleyan Methodist chapel. It was the first of many Wesleyan chapels to be built in Mid and North Wales. The land for the chapel was bought by James Buckley, whose face is familiar to many Welsh people as that adorning bottles of “The Rev James” ale. James Buckley’s father had been brewing beer in Llanelli since 1767. James was a travelling preacher. He was helped in founding this chapel by James Gill, who in 1811 was appointed the Methodists’ missionary in Gibraltar. Methodists in the area held their first meetings at a local farm. They were inspired by the religious reformer John Wesley, who visited the area in 1769. He was passionate about making Christian worship available and attractive to ordinary working people. Pentre Llifior Chapel reflects his attitude in its simple brick construction. The windows, as we see them today, probably date from the century after its construction.
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