Antiques Roadshow expert restores former chapel he bought for 60K from void art gallery Watch Video

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✓ Published: 17-Apr-2024

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An Antiques Roadshow expert has bought a former chapel for 60K to convert into a home and workshop - and is calling on others to ‘save these historic structures’.<br/><br/>Wayne Colquhoun, 60, bought Capel Salem in Corris in Wales - which still had a pulpit with a Bible in.<br/><br/>He says he fell in love with the 1868 romantic slate structure which had fallen into disrepair.<br/><br/>The Grade II listed chapel upkeep became too expensive for the diminishing congregation and was on the market in 2017. <br/><br/>Across Wales, chapels fall into the landscape through disrepair, demolition or ‘insensitive conversion’.<br/><br/>He bought the chapel for £60k, transforming the upper gallery into a three-bed apartment, adding floorboards covering half the gallery.<br/><br/>Wayne said: “When I bought it the bible was still on the pulpit, as though the congregation had walked out and closed the door.<br/><br/>“When people close the doors on old buildings- that’s the danger point. It gets damp and dry rot sets in.<br/><br/>“These historic structures are evocative of Welsh history and have to be saved - we need people who will put their heart and soul into them because it’s easy to butcher conversions.”<br/><br/>He aims to maintain the lower space and Canadian pitch pine panelling for use as his Antiques and Fine Art shop, moved from Liverpool, plus a pottery and sculpture workshop.<br/><br/>He aims to keep as many original features of the property as possible, from its single-glazed arched windows to reusing the pews as kitchen work surfaces.<br/><br/>Nearby, three chapels closest to Capel Salem have closed permanently to worship.<br/><br/>Wayne is in the process of transforming the lower level into his antiques and fine art shop. <br/><br/>He hopes to hold talks and workshops in the space, aiming to build up to employing locals and 'giving back' to the community.<br/><br/>Just 500 feet away sits Holy Trinity Church which closed its doors in 2020 not through lack of attendance, but through disrepair.<br/><br/>Neil Sumner chair of Welsh Religious Buildings Trust wrote that the redundancy of chapels in Wales is due to a 19th century ‘expansionist fervour’ of Nonconformist Chapels (i.e. Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists).<br/><br/>In 1800 Caernarfonshire there were 30 chapels, rising to 221 in 1851, representing a 700 per cent increase.<br/><br/>Combining this flurry of builds with the 20th-century fall in attendance, Sumner wrote “the result is there are now too many buildings for current needs”.<br/><br/>In an attempt to preserve the character of the increasing chapel conversions, historic environment service Cadw has issued guidelines including keeping the front of the chapels untouched, retaining rooms with self-supporting partitions and allowing ‘characteristic features to show through the new walls and floors’.<br/><br/>Meanwhile the Buildings Trust attempt to conserve Welsh chapels through fundraising and management.<br/><br/>After leaving school Wayne went on to become a specialist in the restoration of historic and listed buildings. <br/><br/>Wayne has run an art gallery for over two decades and is an indepe