CHRISTIANITY

What do we know about Glascoed in the nineteenth century? We’ve got evidence from a range of written records, newspaper stories, some oral history, gravestones, trade directories and photographs.

Quite a bit of the information though comes from chapels and churches.

Chapel attendance was quite high with membership numbers appearing to fluctuate between 50 and 100 in this period. For some special events, e.g. the 1892 “Tea party” attendances of 300 could be found.

The chapel, Mount Zion Baptist chapel, was built in 1820, although Baptists had been meeting in the Glascoed area for several generations prior to this.

I highly commend Glyn Williams’ excellent book, “THE HISTORY OF GLASCOED CHAPEL from its origins to 1970”  which not only provides us with a history of the chapel, but a social history of the village, based on written evidence and much rich oral history.

The abbreviated chapel history, is also worth a look.

The Mount Zion Minute books are a mixture of records of baptisms and memberships, of the faith journey of its members along with accounts of events and occasional juicy pieces of information. There are also lists of members and donors to the church. Worth exploring in detail.

St. Michael’s Church, Glascoed was established in the late 1840s, by the main Parish Church at Usk on land that had been generously donated by John Morgan of Hill Farm.

Most records of Glascoed people from churches are in the relevant part of the Records section of this site.

Where I find more general records of Glascoed people in other church or chapel records, (e.g. from membership lists) I will add them to the Other chapels and church records page.