The English Presbyterian Church, Corwell Street, was built in 1873 in the Gothic style of the gable entry type, byarchitect Alfred Bucknall of Swansea. The church was altered in 1893 and enlarged in 1902.

RCAHMW, June 2009


English Presbyterian Chapel, Cowell Street, 1873

Most English-language non-conformist congregations had no inhibitions about using `establishment' gothic by this date and the main gable-front has a full traceried window in correct Geometric Decorated (early fourteenth-century) Gothic. The architect was one of the builder-architect Bucknall brothers from Swansea, prolific constructors of gothic houses, schools, theatres, churches and chapels in fully architecturally `correct' forms. Benjamin had been a pupil of the noted Catholic Church architect Charles Hansom and a known admirer of the pioneering French Medieval Revival architect Voillet-le-Duc whose gothic designs were available in book form. The steeply gabled head of the central doorway could have been inspired by pictures of the porches at Sienna Cathedral and the flanking small arches of the front and the tall lancet windows of the side are in Early English Gothic style of the early thirteenth-century. The elaboration of finish with the curved finials, or crockets, marching down the front gable and porch is quite sophisticated for a gothic chapel of this date. In 1905 the seated accommodation was recorded as 400 which was about half the size of the great majority of Welsh-language chapels in the town although the Sunday School could accommodate 350 which was fairly average for the town.

S.R. Hughes, RCAHMW, 06.09.2007