| Gellionnen,
situated like a mother goddess on her hill-throne, high above Ammanford,
Clydach and Pontardawe, belonged originally to a family of churches whose
ministry spanned almost the whole of the Swansea, Neath and Amman Valleys,
with Blaengwarch and Maesyrhaf to the east, and Mynyddbach (Tyrdwncyn) on
the outskirts of Swansea, and Cwmllynfell at the foot of the Black
Mountain, to the west.
As the writing on the wall tablet testifies, the chapel was built in
1692 under the protection of the Toleration Act, the threat of the Five
Mile Act, and the freedom of the Open trust, for 'the use of the Society
of Protestant Dissenters' thereby making it the oldest Dissenting Cause in
the Swansea Valley. The location that now appears to be so remote, could
have been then the focal point of considerable traffic, for there
converged four roads that lead from Swansea and Brecon, Neath and
Ammanford.
Tradition has it that there were meetings held in the surrounding
farmhouses, especially at 'Gellionnen', prior to the building of the
chapel in 1692, under the influence and support of Jenkin Jones, the 'Catabaptist'
('those who dyd speake and hold oppynyon against the Baptism of children')
who served as an officer in Cromwell's army before becoming a Presbyterian
Minister. |
