Church shuts 300 years after congregation shrinks to one
Tabernacle Chapel in Wales boasted 400 worshippers at its peak in the 1830s but Mike Bennett, 86, is now the sole remaining member
A church in Wales has closed after 305 years because its congregation dwindled to a single worshipper.
Tabernacle Chapel United Reform Church in Rhayader, Powys, boasted a congregation of 400 at its peak in the mid-1830s, but after it steadily declined over the years, just 86-year-old Mike Bennett was present for the Sunday services.
Mr Bennett remembers about 50 people attending the weekly services when he was growing up, but as numbers went “down and down” he was forced to take on more responsibilities within the church to keep it going.
He said: “I have been coming here since I was five years old, so I have found this, the closure, difficult. I cut the grass, I’m the general secretary, pulpit supply secretary, organist and, since Dawn Jones died suddenly in July, I took on her role of treasurer too.
“So, that’s another job that’s come on me. I just feel I can’t carry on. Sadly, things like this are happening, which is behind the closure.”
Tabernacle Chapel United Reform Church in Rhayader has been forced to close
Until recently, three people would regularly worship at the chapel, but ill health left Mr Bennett’s wife, Joyce, who had cleaned the church for 50 years, among those unable to attend
Mr Bennett said he could no longer cope with the demands of running the church while caring for his wife, and that there was nobody else available to take over.
He also questioned national church officials over the cost of running the building for such a small congregation.
“This building, it isn’t what it’s all about,” he said. “Churches are all about the people in them.”
Recalling the “long gone halcyon days” at the Tabernacle Chapel, Mr Bennett said: “We always seemed to have the treasurer as the bank manager of Barclays Bank. One succeeded the other, it was amazing. The congregation has since dwindled significantly. If you drew a graph, it would be going down and down.”
Churches are the crown jewels of Britain’s heritage
The original congregation used to meet in a farmhouse before the church building was constructed in 1721.
John Hanmer, the founder, decided there needed to be a permanent building because “there were so many people wanting to go” to church.
The chapel’s Sunday School was paid for by the Birmingham Corporation Water Department, which oversaw the development of the Elan Valley where Mr Bennett worked for 35 years. It also donated an ornate wooden chair which King Edward VII sat on when the dams were officially opened in 1904.
The market town of Rhayader is also famed for being the birthplace of Robert Jermain Thomas, the pioneering missionary, who introduced Christianity to Korea in the 19th century through his distribution of Bibles in Pyongyang.
Mr Bennett said: “Each year a party from that church visit Tabernacle and hold a service to commemorate his life and give thanks to what they regard as the sister church. A party from the Korean church visited Rhayader earlier this year and I was told that their membership is over 2,000 people.”
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