Welsh Chapels

The Welsh arrived in 1865, the families were nucleated in land plots along the Chubut river inferior valley, slowly stretching the farmland occupation from Rawson to the west. Their primary focus was livestock and agriculture, but also had some transcendental cultural activities: music, music theory, social meetings, choirs, Eisteddfods and literature, with a journalistic and democratic vocation.

The diversity of their religion and cultural occupations were unifying elements that helped overcome the difficult circumstances, together with the sense of community and perhaps heightened by the loneliness imposed by the Patagonia, and made possible the settlement of the Welsh colony roots in Chubut. The chapels were always multi-purpose cultural centers.

The first worship were held outdoors in the immensity of Patagonia, then in private houses, in barns and finally in the chapels. The various religious denominations were always Protestants. There were times when people attended the chapels three times a day, for that reason the chapels were located in equidistant sites to no more than 10kms. Thus the sixteen existing chapels in the Valley are distributed in this way. Other two are located in Colonia October 16 in the provincial Cordillera.

In total, thirty-four chapels were built in the 1865 - 1925 period , but it must be clarified that they didn't all exists simultaneously, twelve were razed by floods, some were reconstructed, others were demolished by several causes: by storms, for too very small, or for being located in the street surveying the fields.

Architecture

It's unknown if Chubut's chapels meet the typical Welsh architecture standards but they have a clear European influence, they were built with whatever materials were available on site at the time of the construction. Generally they were built with mud bricks.

The floors, ceilings, windows and doors were all made of spruce wood as well as the pulpits and the benches, in some cases with detailed tillage. The roofs, mostly gable are all zinc plate, supported by wooden structures. The buildings' ground floor usually have a "L" or rectangle shape . Originally the lighting was done by kerosene hanging lamps, which only a few remain.

Welsh chapels located in "the Chubut River Inferior Valley" and "16 de Octubre Valley"