Welsh Journals

Providence chapel in Bishopston was used for many years by the Girl Guides, and is now available for general use. Two chapels have become derelict the roofless Mount Hermon Baptist near Penclawdd, and Carmel Independent at Cilonen, in addition to the remains of the seventeenth century Baptist chapel in the Ilston valley. In spite of the decline in numbers of chapels in Gower from 1911, Wales as a whole has one Christian place of worship (counting churches as well as chapels) for roughly every 580 residents,16 which is more than twice the number per head of population than for England or Scotland. Although much of the preceding article has been a list of places of worship, these do signify the Christian faith of many persons throughout the peninsula. Whereas nearly a hundred years has elapsed since the last religious revival in Wales, those chapels, along with the churches, remind our increasingly materialistic age that God is still worshipped in the length and breadth of rural Gower. References 1. Wyn Jones, Capel y Crwys, Gower 1788-1988 (1988). 2. Also spelt Miles. See 'John Miles: Gower's Pilgrim Father', in Gower XLVI (1995). 3. There they founded Swansea, Massachusetts, though this is not recorded on the memorial tablet on the ruined chapel in the Ilston valley. 4. David Bevan & Doreen Leighton, Pitton Methodist Chapel 1887-1987 (1987). 5. Henry Simons, 'Early Education in Gower', in Gower XXIII (1972). 6. I.G. Jones & D. Williams (eds), The Religious Census of 1851, volume 1 (1976). 7. Revd B. Tudor Lloyd, 'The Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Connexion' (in Glamorgan Family History Society Booklet). 8. G. Gregor, 'William Griffiths: The Apostle of Gower', in Gower LII (2001). 9. Frank B. Hankinson, A History of Gower Methodism (1948). 10. G.P. Neilson 'Oxwich Green Chapel', in Gower XXXIII (1982). 11. Robert Lucas, Rhossili (1989). 12. R.N. Cooper, A Dark and Pagan Place (1984). 13. Revd B. Tudor Lloyd, Bethesda Chapel, Buny Green 1813-1963 (1963). 14. Ian J. Campbell, Reynoldston Methodist Chapel 1797 to 1997 (1997). 15. Winifred Taffs, Providence Baptist Chapel, Knelston, 1858-1958 (1958). 16. Welsh Churches Survey, Challenge to Change (1995). Further Reading R.N. Cooper: Higher and Lower: The History of Llanrhidian (Penclawdd, 1998). A Guide to Gower (Gower Society, Swansea, 6th edition, 1999). Anthony Jones, Welsh Chapels (1984). Meic Stephens (ed.), The New Companion to the Literature of Wales (1998).