CAMPAIGNERS have succeeded in raising enough money to purchase the Welsh chapel in Hopkinstown, Pontypridd, during which Cwm Rhondda — acknowledged to be one of the vital popular hymn tunes — was first heard in 1907.
The West Baptist Union chapel, inbuilt 1853, held its final service last December owing to a decline in congregation numbers. It was advertised on the market at £47,000. Rhian Hopkins, who was brought up within the town, arrange a crowdfunding appeal to purchase it for the community. She told BBC Wales on 17 July that “so many churches and chapels across Wales, but particularly within the South Wales valleys, are closing attributable to dwindling congregations, then being sold to the best bidder.
“It’s incredibly sad that these magnificent buildings often fall into the hands of property developers whose sole priority is financial profit. In preserving Capel Rhondda and other chapels in our region, we’re holding on to a precious thread which links us to our ancestors. Although lots of us are not any longer ‘believers’ in the standard sense, we still need spaces where we are able to congregate and feel that we belong.”
The initial appeal attracted 100 supporters, who raised ten per cent of the entire sum needed. It was Mrs Hopkins’s interview on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme which drew the campaign to wider attention, swelling the list to 300. The Welsh singer, harpist, and Greenbelt performer Lleuwen Saffan was one who posted a recording of the tune online.
The campaigners had until Monday 28 July to place of their bid. The goal was raised to £60,000 to include legal fees, and it was reached on Tuesday morning. Mrs Hopkins told BBC News how she had “watched the crowdfunding page and it was like someone winning the jackpot on a fruit machine and the coins carry on coming out, since the figures just kept on going up”.
A community consultation is now planned, to debate the most effective use of their constructing. A member of the campaign team, Jessica Morgan, indicated on social media that there was a “strong desire” to preserve the sanctuary, the organ, and the side hall for community space.
The original hymn was written in 1745 by William Williams, considered one of 800 that he wrote during greater than 40 years (and 10,000 miles) as an itinerant minister. The Cwm Rhondda tune was composed for a Welsh song festival in 1905 by John Hughes, an official of the Great Western Railway and precentor of Salem Baptist Church in Pontypridd. It is regularly heard at weddings and rugby matches, with its famous “Bread of Heaven” refrain.
“Legend has it that he originally wrote it in chalk on a bit of tarpaulin but more likely is his wife’s recollection that he wrote it one Sunday morning while within the Salem Chapel,” records Professor Ian Bradley within the Penguin Book of Hymns.
“What is for certain is that its popularity was greatly boosted by its frequent use within the trenches of Flanders within the First World War, where it was sung so melodiously by Welsh soldiers that German troops took it up.” Hughes originally called the tune Rhondda after the mining valley in South Wales, but had so as to add the word Cwm (valley) to tell apart it from an existing tune of the identical name.
