I've been to have another look at Cana Independent Chapel in Felindre Farchog, one of the few that are known to have spotted dolerite blocks incorporated into the facade. It's a Grade 2 listed building which no longer has a congregation -- it was sold into private hands about four years ago. It's beginning to look a bit sad....
I wanted to see just how many blocks of spotted dolerite there are in the front face of the chapel. There are certainly plenty of them, but most are crudely dressed, and the chapel is not particularly well built. The foundations are dodgy, the stonework is roughly hewn, and the pointing is of poor quality. Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd refers to the stones as "hammer dressed". All sorts of stones are incorporated into the facade, and it was clearly not a priority of the congregation, when the chapel was rebuilt in 1857, to face the building exclusively with "posh stone" -- included are assorted other dolerites, some rhyolite, some shales and slates, and even some local sandstones. I reckon that maybe 10% of the stones are spotted dolerites. The facade is nothing like as sophisticated as that of Bethel Chapel in Mynachlog-ddu.
So where did the spotted dolerites come from? I doubt that they were "quarried" exclusively from Carn Goedog -- I think it much more likely that they were picked up from many different sources on the northern flank of the Preseli uplands.
So where did the spotted dolerites come from? I doubt that they were "quarried" exclusively from Carn Goedog -- I think it much more likely that they were picked up from many different sources on the northern flank of the Preseli uplands.
Two of the spotted dolerite stones built into the lower part of the front facade.
See also:
Here in Bath, most pre-Georgian buildings were built from either freestone or rubble, sourced locally from upper beds (which were the bane of farmers trying to plough a clean field), or from about 20 miles away at the white lias quarries. Commercial stone often travelled great distances. Many of the post Norman churches in England were built from French stone, and were brought over as ballast on ordinary merchant ships. There is no mystery when a building shows stone sourced some distance from the building.
ReplyDelete