Capel Salem is a Grade II listed former chapel in

Pwllheli Pwllheli ( ; ) is a market town and community on the Llŷn Peninsula (), in Gwynedd, north-west Wales. It had a population of 4,076 in 2011, which declined slightly to 3,947 in 2021; a large proportion (81%) were Welsh language, Welsh speaking. ...

Gwynedd Gwynedd () is a county in the north-west of Wales. It borders Anglesey across the Menai Strait to the north, Conwy, Denbighshire, and Powys to the east, Ceredigion over the Dyfi estuary to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west. The ci ...

, Wales. It was originally built in 1862 for the

Presbyterian Church of Wales The Presbyterian Church of Wales (), also known as the Calvinistic Methodist Church (), is a denomination of Protestant Christianity based in Wales. The Calvinistic Methodist movement has its origins in the 18th-century Welsh Methodist revival ...

, to the designs of the architect Thomas Thomas of

Landore Landore () is a district and community in Swansea, Wales. The district falls in the Landore council ward. A mainly residential area, it is located about 2.5 miles north of Swansea city centre. The north-easterly part of Landore is known as ...

. In 1893 it was remodelled and enlarged. A fire was started in 1913 by a local person who tried to steal money from the chapel; when he found none, he set fire to the building. It was then closed until 1915 after restoration. In September 2022, the chapel and its adjoining Sunday school annex, which had been on the market for twelve years, were purchased by the potter

Keith Brymer Jones Keith Brymer Jones (born 3 June 1965) is a British potter and ceramic designer who produces homeware with retro lettering and punk motifs. He is an expert judge on Channel 4 television programme ''The Great Pottery Throw Down.'' Early life B ...

and his wife, Marj Hogarth. Brymer Jones said that they planned to convert the property into a studio and living quarters and eventually open it to the community. A four-part show depicting the initial phase of the renovation, ''Our Welsh Chapel Dream'', aired on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

. The episodes reveal the challenges faced by Brymer Jones and Hogarth, including dry rot, fungus growth, decades of pigeon excrement, and the absence of water and electricity, as well as the reactions of people of Pwllheli to the repurposing of the building complex. A second four-episode series, which depicts how Brymer Jones and Hogarth converted the downstairs area of the Sunday school into a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and snug, was released in April 2025. A third series has been commissioned.

References

External links

* Pwllheli Pwllheli, Capel Salem Chapels in Gwynedd {{Wales-church-stub