Capel y Rug — Attraction in Corwen

Rug Chapel, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is a highly decorated, 17th century private chapel that escaped both the white-washing iconoclasm of the Protestant reformation and the over-zealous restoration of the Victorian era. The chapel was built in 1637 by Colonel William Salesbury, a Royalist and privateer, with the help of Bishop William Morgan, known for his translation of the Bible into Welsh. Whilst the exterior of the single-cell structure is plain and unassuming, the interior of the chapel is rich and elaborate with decoration and ornamentation on nearly every available surface. A large gallery is built into the west end. All but the screen and stained glass are originals from the 17th century. The chancel screen is an interesting later addition, put up in 1854 but built in the Jacobean style to look like it’s been there all along. There are three types of pew in Rug Chapel. There are large, ornate canopied pews in the sanctuary itself and box pews can be found in front of the screen. The most interesting are the bench like pews that fill the rest of the nave. On each side of the nave the ends of these pews are all a single piece of oak, scalloped between the benches and carved with mythical creatures. The north wall of the chapel nave is adorned with a large memento mori wall painting, complete with anatomically questionable skeleton. The painting, designed to remind the congregation of life’s impermanence, was a very popular motif in the...

Don't bother visiting it. The A494/A5 crossroads this is situated next to is 4-way traffic controlled and (as we found out later) susceptible to really bad congestion most of the time. (It took us close to three-quarters of an hour to move about 500 yards when we were there.) We'd tried contacting Cadw in advance to find out the opening hours for the Chapel prior to our visit but couldn't get a straight answer from staff. As we were travelling on route Betws-y-Coed, and would pass near this anyway, we decided to make a slight detour stop by on the off-chance. It was closed, and looked like it had been quite some time. Later on I contacted Cadw again and, this time, was informed this site is only open four days a year between May and August, one day each month, and that's only if Cadw "can spare the staff," which "they often can't." The same (apparently) also applies to Valle Crucial Abbey just down the...

Went here following signs, got to the gate to realise it was closed, a man came behind us in his car to shout aggressively 'I live here! get out of my way!' such a rude individual, if he is the custodian of this beautiful chapel then he should be kicked out. rude...