Why Do Welsh Chapels Have a Name and a Date Carved on the Front?

Walk down almost any street in Wales and you will find a chapel with a stone tablet high on its front: a name from the Bible, and below it a list of dates and Welsh words. Bethel, Seion, Ebenezer. Adeiladwyd. Ailadeiladwyd. Helaethwyd. Why do Welsh chapels carry their names and dates on their faces, what do the words mean, and what do the dates reveal about the people who built them? In this film we read one chapel tablet word by word, from the biblical name to the debts, the rebuildings and the rivalries, from a cow shed in the hills to the great revival of 1904, and finish with a simple guide to reading any chapel you pass. SOURCES Coflein (RCAHMW), chapel records and the Welsh Chapels database RCAHMW, Digital Dissent: The Story of Welsh Chapels; Capeli Cymru project Cadw listings via British Listed Buildings 1851 Religious Census (via Nonconformity in Wales) Our chapel Bethel and deacon Ifor are composites. What is written on the front of your family's chapel? Tell us in the comments. #Wales #WelshChapels #Capeli #Nonconformist #Cymru