NONCONFORMIST CHAPELS AND MEETINGHOUSES

In a period when so many Nonconformist chapels throughout Wales are being made redundant and demolished or converted to secular use, no fewer than three in the parish of Glasbury appear in Anthony Jones’ monograph Welsh Chapels (1984), listed as buildings which should be “saved at all costs”: Maesyronen, Capel-y-ffin and Treble Hill, each representative of a different period and style of chapel building. In J.W. Hobbs’ reminiscences, he describes the Chapel Sunday school Anniversaries as great events, when children and adults would give songs and recitations: “One year a grand ‘Dialogue’ was given by the men of the Chapel. It was called ‘Noah’s Ark’ and the part of the patriarch was taken by the white haired old stationmaster, Mr. Jones. There were about a dozen men and boys taking part, but the only two names I remember were a Mr. Holder and the jovial old Precentor, Mr. James Morgan, who added a touch of humour by rushing in, getting stage fright and instead of the grandiloquent speech he should have delivered, looking blankly around and then blurting out, ‘the river has ruz, and I’m feared as most of my ships have been washed away’. I was a sinner who repented and arrived after Noah had entered the Ark (the Chapel vestry), and heard the solemn words from inside ‘Too late, too late, the door is shut, you cannot enter now!’”.

OTHER DENOMINATIONS

ROMAN CATHOLICS

Following the Reformation, there is little evidence for the practice of Roman Catholicism in the parish until the twentieth century. In January 1676, enquiries were made by the Archbishop of Canterbury throughout England and Wales as to the number of conformist inhabitants, popish recusants and protestant dissenters in each parish. Unfortunately, the parish of Glasbury with the chapelry of Aberllynfi was omitted from the census. However, a return was made for Llanigon (which probably included the chapelry of Capel-y-ffin), where two papists were reported. These may have been John George and his wife from Capel-y-ffin, who appear on a list of indicted Nonconformists compiled on 8th April 1684, George having been noted in 1679 as “a papist reformed”. Around 1745 the Rev. John Williams (vicar of Glasbury) averred: “There is not one Papist within this Parish”. In 1762 his successor and namesake was even more emphatic: “There is never a Papist, nor Popish place of worship, nor Popish Priest residing, nor Popish School kept in my parish”.

QUAKERS

In the mid-eighteenth century there was only “one very poor Quaker family” in the parish, “a poor weaver a Quaker who brings up his children in that way”. Between 1657 and 1666 George Fox visited Wales on several occasions, teaching of divine revelation through an individual’s “inner light”, and preaching a gospel of brotherly love. By the end of the century the Quaker movement was widespread, but scarcely made itself felt in Glasbury. Entries in St. Peter’s Church registers refer to two Quaker families: William Jenkins “quaker of ye Velindre” buried 25th January 1690/1 (and his daughter several years later), and Anne Lewis “of ye Tyleglass, a Quaker” buried 26th January 1696/7. An earlier entry refers to “William Davids of Talgarth commonly called Y Quaker Côch”, who was found dead “on wy side in a place called Groscegir – (it is reported yt he made himself away upon discontent because he shld not marry his maide. The lord of the mannor seized on his Goods & his body is in Glasbury Churchyard near ye way as goes to Aberllyfni, where noe good Xtians are buried) – on ye 27 of November 1688”. It would appear that in the early years of the new churchyard, as in medieval times, the area north of the church was not regarded as consecrated land; hence it was a suitable place for the grave of a Quaker and a suicide.

LATTER DAY SAINTS

Within twenty years of the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints by Joseph Smith in 1830, a petition for the licence and registration of a Mormon meetinghouse in Glasbury was submitted to the Consistory Court. On 25th January 1850, Philip Seix certified that “a certain Room in the House of William Davies in the parish of Glasbury… is intended to be used as a place of worship by the congregation of Protestants, called the Latter day Saints”.

Source : -- "A Chapter on the Churches and Chapels in the Parish of Glasbury " by M.A.V. Gill