St. Melyd’s Church Gallery

Have you ever visited Rhug Chapel near Corwen?  From the outside you might easily wonder what all the fuss is about, it looks like a smaller version of St. Melyd’s and even the bellcote looks like ours.  It has a west door and as you enter, any children you may have had with you will probably vanish!  They would have discovered that Rhug Chapel has something quite magical—a gallery—and the rickety wooden steps are irresistible.

You have probably heard that St. Melyd’s had a gallery, yet we know little about it.  During Cromwell’s time, organs were banned and most were either removed or destroyed.  When the monarchy was restored in 1660, there was a desire to reintroduce music. In the absence of an organ, western galleries were erected and occupied by parishioners with musical ability who played a motley collection of instruments to lead the singing.  It was customary for the congregation to turn around to face the gallery—a custom observed in Meliden until the restoration of the church in 1884-5.

The Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust says, ‘It is also known that the pre-restoration church had a west gallery, and a rood screen which was sited to the west of the present vestry arch. Both were probably removed in the 18thC.’

I have searched for evidence of its existence but never found it—until now—and the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust are wrong about when the gallery was removed.  The proof is provided by a mischievous child, none other than Alice Lean, the aunt of our late organist, Gwyneth Kermode.  Alice was a great letter writer and there are two letters that contain the proof I needed:

Writing to Mrs. Bishop, the daughter of John Dawson in February 1940:

“One Christmas  I was up in the gallery helping the decorators and I had a small bag of “frost” which I threw over the Leans and the Curate was below & I let some “frost” fall on his head.  He asked me if I did it on purpose & and I told him I did not”

Writing to Mrs. Morgan, widow of the Archdeacon of Merioneth in April 1940:

“I commenced playing the old harmonium before I was ten years old.  It was placed in the centre of a large square pew, under the gallery at the West End and opposite to it, your father, when he converted & curtained two pews into a vestry.”

Alice would have been 10 in about 1876.   She was the daughter of Captain John Lean who had been appointed as the manager of the Talargoch Lead Mine in 1875 and the information is accurate, I have no doubt.  Her letters are detailed and informed—if you ever met Miss Kermode, you will have met the same orderly mind.

Now the mystery.  Why did Arthur Baker, consulting architect for the 1884-5 restoration of St, Melyd’s fail to mention the presence of a west gallery?  Could it have already gone?
Soon after becoming Vicar in 1879, the Rev. John Morgan let it be known that he wished the church to be restored.  As we read in Alice’s letter, he started by creating a sort of vestry at the back—perhaps he also removed the gallery before 1884.