Park Street Methodist Chapel

John Wesley (1703-1791), the founder of the Wesleyan Methodist movement, visited Pontypool and Abergavenny in 1739 and many were converted to his cause. The Wesleyan message reached Blaenavon by the early 19th century and an old malt-house served as the first place of worship for the Blaenavon Wesleyan Methodists.

The growing congregation meant that by the 1830s a more convenient place of worship was required and in 1837 Wesley Chapel was built on Chapel Row. In 1871 the Wesleyans constructed a day school in Park Street for the benefit of Blaenavon’s nonconformist children and during the 1880s the Wesleyans decided to build a new chapel next to the schoolrooms. Park Street Methodist Chapel was designed by a Derbyshire architect named John Wills and was built in 1885 on land leased to the Wesleyan Methodists by the Blaenavon Company.

The Wesleyan Chapel of Chapel Row was demolished shortly before the demolition of the surrounding houses in the 1960s. Park Street Methodist Chapel, however, the last of Blaenavon’s Methodist Chapels, still has a strong congregation today.