Mystery international artist pays £200k for landmark historic chapel and promises to make it 'people's palace'
A historic chapel, which has been a place of worship since 1801, sold for £200,000 to an unnamed Mid Wales buyer at auction.
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Newtown's Grade II listed Zion Baptist Chapel, prominently located on the corner of New Church Street and New Road, went under the hammer at Halls auctioneers’ final property auction of the year in Shrewsbury.
The chapel had a guide price of £100,000 to £120,000.
The buyer, who wishes to remain anonymous, is described as "an artist of international reputation who also read philosophy and architectural history and lectured at Birmingham University for 16 years".
Halls said the buyer would like the chapel’s schoolroom to become an exhibition space for international art as well as a venue for teaching seminars.
Assuring townspeople that the chapel is in safe hands, he stressed: “I am interested in the future of not only the building but of the town and would like to develop it as a people’s palace.
“I am beyond thrilled to be the new owner of this imposing building which I think looks like St Paul’s Cathedral without the dome. It’s Neo-Baroque architecture is quite unusual for the 1880s and quite unique.”
Halls director James Evans, based at the company’s Welshpool office, said: “We are delighted with the price achieved for the chapel, which is a most unusual and interesting building.
“It just goes to show that Halls’ collective property and land auctions are a great way to sell unusual properties with sensible guide prices that can then go on to realise their full potential.
“It’s especially pleasing that the buyer, who wishes to remain anonymous, has plans for an art gallery which will hopefully secure the future and integrity of this wonderful, cathedral-like building.”
The chapel has a classical front in brick and freestone with a shaped gable above a huge Corinthian façade with portico and pillars.
The interior is lavish with a rectangular congregation hall, raked gallery on iron columns and fine ironwork, segmental vaulted ceiling, round arched arcades to gallery sides, a giant Serliana arch to the organ chamber and grey marble columns.
The accommodation comprises two storeys above a basement, which housed the schoolroom and a rear service block containing offices, kitchen and schoolrooms.
The original chapel was built in 1801 and enlarged in 1814, 1821 and 1836, before the current building was rebuilt in 1881, to a design by architect George Morgan of Carmarthen, costing £8,000.
It was designed to accommodate 1,334 people.
When the memorial stones were laid on August 17, 1881, the Baptist choir sang and the minister, the Rev J. W. Williams of Derby gave a history of the Baptists in the county.
It was claimed that the chapel had 364 communicants and 550 scholars and teachers.
