The repair and conservation of Capel Peniel, Tremadog

Abstract

The roof of Capel Peniel, a Grade I listed chapel in Tremadog, north-west Wales, had succumbed to leakages and falling masonry for the best part of a decade following its closure in 2010. The chapel’s exterior fabric had badly deteriorated and was subsequently placed on the local authority’s buildings at risk register. The roof had to be repaired in its entirety, which was carried out alongside specialist local contractors, featured like-for-like repairs, random diminishing Ffestiniog slate courses, brand-new cut slate copings along the front gable end, repair and replacement of structural timber members and replacement of cast-iron rainwater goods. This paper seeks to explain the thinking behind the steps taken to make the chapel weathertight while preserving and sympathetically altering historic details that give its unique character. It examines the identification and assessment of problems with the original historic detailing and some more recent interventions, which were the root cause of the roof’s demise, before executing concepts that could be perceived as pushing the boundaries of conservation practices.