Crane Street Church, Torfaen
Crane Street Church, Torfaen
Crane Street Baptist and United Reformed Church is a Grade II* Greek Revival chapel in Pontypool town centre, backing onto the market, built for an English-speaking Baptist congregation and now a Local Ecumenical Partnership.
- Location
- Torfaen, Monmouthshire
- Country
- Wales
- County
- Monmouthshire
- City / town
- Torfaen
- Address
- Torfaen, Monmouthshire, NP4 6LY
- Postcode
- NP4 6LY
- Built
- Commissioned 1845; opened 1847; gallery lighting and other alterations c1900
- Architect
- John Langdon; said to have been designed by Aaron Crosfield
- Denomination
- Baptist & United Reformed Church
- Grade
- II*
- Style
- Greek Revival, with c1900 Art Nouveau alterations
- Materials
- Yellow Bath limestone ashlar; Welsh slate and glazed roof
- Grid reference
- SO 281 009
- Opening hours
- The church is open Monday Wednesday and Friday mornings 10am to 1pm.
- Access
- Level access to the main areas. Accessible toilets nearby
Overview
Cadw accepts the attribution to the architect John Langdon (the chapel was said to have been designed by Aaron Crosfield and “improved and perfected” by Langdon). It was commissioned in 1845 and opened in 1847 at a cost of £2,200. The street front is yellow Bath limestone ashlar: a three-bay facade with a projecting Doric portico of square piers and fluted columns, a pediment, and an inscribed plaque “CRANE STREET BAPTIST CHURCH 1847”. Cast-iron spear railings close the frontage. The roof is Welsh slate with glazing, originally the main light source from above.
About 1900, Art Nouveau alterations inserted gallery lighting and Gothic tracery windows in former niches. The interior is square, with Greek-incised pilasters, an all-round gallery on slim iron columns with a filigree iron front and mahogany rail, a 1847 Greek Revival preaching stand, and a total-immersion baptistery beneath the set fawr. Cadw grades the building II* for the quality of that interior. The congregation formed in 1836 in a former Friends meeting house and, in 2002, entered a Local Ecumenical Partnership with Mount Pleasant United Reformed Church.