Former Bethcar Chapel, Ebbw Vale
This chapel was founded c.1808, in the early years of Ebbw Vale/Glynebwy as an ironworking town. The building was enlarged twice as the population grew. In the 1990s it became the town’s library, now managed by the Aneurin Leisure Trust.
Bethcar Welsh Wesleyan Chapel and Bethcar Terrace, to the south, were surrounded by industrialisation for most of the 19th century. Horses hauled wagons along tramways in front of and behind the buildings.
The chapel was a venue for musical events. In the 1870s concerts were held to pay off the debt for the chapel’s enlargement in the 1860s. A concert here in 1879 raised funds for Benjamin Evans, who was blind.
The chapel hosted an annual eisteddfod from 1889. At the 1891 eisteddfod, the Brynmawr Choir under conductor Mr Burrows won the chief prize: a gold medal and £8 (over £850 today). In 1891 choirs from various districts came to Bethcar for a cymanfa ganu (singing association), aimed at improving the quality of congregational singing in chapels.
By the 1890s many of the nearby tramways had gone and new buildings lined the eastern sides of Bethcar Street and Market Street. The area was emerging as the town centre we know today. Until the 1960s these two streets were separated by a level crossing, where a mineral railway continued south of Ebbw Vale’s high-level station.
The 1948 aerial photo, courtesy of the Welsh Government, shows the chapel (near the bottom left corner), level crossing and station.
In 1899 a court building was opened beside the police station in Bethcar Street. Previously magistrates had used the Ebbw Vale Institute. The first defendant in the new court was an elderly Irishman named Daniel O’Connell, who admitted a highway offence. The magistrates asked if he was related to the Irish nationalist leader of the same name. Although he wasn’t, they discharged him because of his distinguished name and because they wanted to mark the court’s opening with an act of leniency! They then retired to luncheon in the magistrates’ room with police and other officials.
Postcode: NP23 6HS View Location Map
Library information – Aneurin Leisure Trust website