A Welsh valleys community has launched a campaign to save the chapel where the popular hymn Cwm Rhondda, or Bread of Heaven, was first sung.
The composer John Hughes wrote the hymn in 1907 to celebrate a new organ at Capel Rhondda in Hopkinstown, near Pontypridd.
The Grade II-listed building closed its doors in December after years of shrinking congregations and was put up for sale by the Baptist Union of Wales for £47,000 two months ago.
When Rhian Hopkins, who grew up in Hopkinstown, drove past the chapel and noticed the for sale sign, she said she was “devastated”.
“I wasn’t able to stop thinking about how this piece of history could be lost or turned into flats by a property developer who could pick it up for next to nothing,” she said. “I arranged a viewing and took an architect friend who said the building was fine.”
Hopkins and other campaigners set up a last-minute crowdfunding drive on 17 July, the day before the deadline for potential buyer bids. The union has since extended the deadline to 28 July to give the fundraiser the chance to meet its target. As of Wednesday, 65% of the total – £31,000 – had been pledged.
Hopkins said: “At a time when the world can feel rather bleak, this community effort seems to be resonating with people and reminding us that although we might no longer feel the need to attend a religious service every Sunday, we do need spaces and occasions where we can come together as a community.”
Hopkinstown residents hope that Capel Rhondda can be maintained as a community space, with a potential focus on choirs and Welsh-language groups. “We have lots of ideas about how the building can be used going forward but really want to engage with those living in the village to find out what they want and need,” the fundraising page says.
More challenges lie ahead, Hopkins acknowledged. “The first step is to secure the building. Then we probably need to set up a charity of some sort … There are all sorts of maintenance and repair costs, heating and maintenance, things like that to think about,” she said.
About a quarter of Wales’s places of worship have closed over the last decade as congregations have declined, according to research by the Bevan Foundation, the leading Welsh public policy charity and thinktank.
Chapels across Wales have been redeveloped into private homes or second homes and holiday lets.
