Swansea
The Gnoll Church Story
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- Created on Friday, 26 August 2011 10:46
CONGREGATIONALISM IN NEATH
WIND STREET
English Congregationalism in Neath took root in 1842, when a chapel was opened in Wind Street. Five years later the first minister arrived in the person of Ebenezer S. Hart, M.A., a Scotsman, one assumes, a graduate of Aberdeen University and of the theological college there. The impression is given that he came over to Congregationalism in 1850 and Neath was his first church. But he did not last long – in fact he left in the following year for St.Ives. Dr. Thomas Rees in his five-volume work on Congregational Churches in Wales says this of Neath: “The Church has gone through many changes in its history and there have been many moves among ministers, as happens to most of the English causes in Wales. Its site in Wind Street was not most suitable for the cause.” From 1850 to 1880 there were nine ministers inducted and farewelled. More on them later, perhaps.
GNOLL ROAD
Eventually the church realised that its premises in Wind Street were two small and in the wrong place. In August 1884 Dr. Thomas Rhondda Williams began his ministry at Neath and in the following month the church began looking around for a new site. The advice of Dr. Thomas Rees of Ebeneser, Swansea, was sought and he choose the site which was purchased, even though Rhondda Williams favoured another.
In August 1885 two of the foundation stones of Gnoll Road Church were laid by Samuel Morley MP and Sir John Jones Jenkins. Morley at that time was MP for Bristol – a leading Congregationalist and a wealthy man. Which was the more important, I wonder? He gave the church a cheque for £100. Sir John Jones Jenkins gave £10 – but he was almost a professional foundation stone layer. A tinplate worker who became a powerful industrialist. He grew up a Welsh Independent; around the time he became a baronet he moved to Walter Road English Congregational Church. Then he was raised to the peerage as Lord Glantawe and joined the Church of England. The new building was described as “early Gothic in style. The elevation is extremely pleasing and the fittings and decorations of the interior are very handsome.” I’m sure that many present would agree with those sentiments. Gnoll Road church cost £3,416. What of Wind Street Chapel? For a while the evangelists Frank and Seth Joshua hired it on Sunday afternoons at 2/6 a time. Then it was purchased by the Salvation Army for £560, who used it until 1935 when it was demolished.