Saw this beauty on the market in Machynlleth. Is there no way the city can buy this? Its a very nice building that could serve the community… it's a one time opportunity…

by Human_Excitement_441

8 comments

  1. What “city”?

    Chapels are incredibly complicated to convert, but it can be done. Converting into flats deletes all the original features, but keeping as vast open spaces makes them impossible to heat adequately.

  2. Needs at least £100k spent on the roof.. then you have a complex listed building with a bunch of arbitrary covenants placed on it by the trustees.

  3. It’s Grade II listed which should afford it all least some care.

  4. Can confirm this will be super expensive to do anything with. I’ve been involved with a few church conversions, and this building will need at least a £1million spent on it to make it of any use to anyone.
    What do you propose it be used for by the community? Community centre, or a cafe, or something else? While these buildings are definitely worth preserving, they are very expensive to maintain and run. As others have pointed out, they’re not exactly designed for thermal efficiency.

  5. IMHO humble rather than honest… These buildings are amazing, they are special.

    They are also nearly impossible to use in a meaningful manner.

    I’d really love to see one of two things done, if one of these has a specially lovely facade then keep it as a front for a suitable modern building attached to it after the barn like chapel has been carefully demolished to use all the supurb building materials either in the same build or elsewhere.

    Or, in the case of some of the really awkwardly place ones with no space around them?

    Take them to pieces very carefully, reuse everything for heritage buildings elsewhere and just move on.

    I hate to be a boring pragmatist but non of them I’ve seen abandoned ar e particularly old or unique and we have a serious need for decent housing.

    Build some houses on the site of these relics and use the materials to build a magnificent…. And useful secular building somewhere where people will actually use it.

  6. Seems to me that building was built for a purpose that no longer exists. If it’s crucial to the locality then ask the locals to stump up the cash to preserve it (see how far that gets you). If not, demolish it (sell the stone to someone that can reuse it) and allow the space to be used by a building that’s needed in that location

  7. There simply is no market in the town to do something with such a substantial building. The town is roughly 2000 people, there’s already a large Anglican church and a large catholic church, all the other smaller chapels have already been converted to houses. This is a huge building, probably too big to convert to one house.

    The town already has a chapel converted to a theatre – Y Tabernacl, attached to the art museum. It would be nice if that organisation could convert it to community use, but there’s little need for another auditorium.

    There’s an annual comedy festival, it would be a nice gesture to the town for them to take it over, but it would only get used for 3 days a year.

    I honestly have no idea what they will do with it. I would hate to see it fall into disrepair, but there simply isn’t the money or need for it anymore – which is just sad.

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