Torchlight Parade Honours 800th Anniversary of Helston Charter

On Saturday, 14 April 2001, a torchlight procession was held to light a beacon on the eve of the 800th anniversary of the granting of the first royal charter to Helston by King John. The procession left the Guildhall at dusk and followed a route of just under one mile via Meneage Street and Trengrouse Way and finally into Clodgey Lane.

The beacon lit for the occasion was sited in Beacon Hill, in the grounds of the Helston Ward. The beacon burned throughout the night to the anniversary the following day.

Bishop Rowland Crocker represented the Church for the celebrations. The Mayor and Mayoress of Helston, Councillor Donald Eddy and Mrs Eddy, invited members of the Church to attend a civic procession and service to celebrate the 800th anniversary. This was held on 15 April at the Parish Church of St Michael's, Helston. - Clive Payne, St Austell Ward, Plymouth Stake

Rediscovered First Llanelli Meetinghouse Is Remembered

Most people like a gentle mystery, and the identity of the first meeting-house of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Llanelli provides just such a diversion.

The Church arrived in Llanelly (note the earlier, anglicised, spelling) in 1845 and made a slow start. However, by 1847 there were some 40 members there, and the Llanelly Branch was formed.

Formalisation seemed to have a dynamic effect: the Llanelly Saints decided that meeting in a rented room was just not good enough and started to construct a large, purpose-built chapel.

On Saturday 28 January 1849, the famous Captain Dan Jones, the new president of the Welsh Mission, came to dedicate the completed chapel.

He reported to Orson Pratt, the British Mission President, that it was "a very commodious and well built Chapel, situated in the centre of the town, and will accommodate above a thousand persons with seats. Yesterday, during each meeting, it was crowded to overflowing... with attentive hearers, and the streets outside and around the lower windows thronged with people."

Dan Jones was known to embellished at times, so perhaps the building wasn't quite that big. However, the large attendance and the mention of lower windows cast doubt on the assumption that the building demolished a few years ago at 11 Water Street was the original Llanelly meeting-house, as was reported in the February 2001 Ensign.

The building in Water Street was shown first on 1853 Board of Health map of Llanelly and is marked "Mormonite Chapel 116 seats." It was a single story affair and would have been hard pressed to accommodate even 116 people.

It also had only one row of windows. Dan Jones' report of lower windows, coupled with a size disparity, suggests that this could not have been the chapel he dedicated.

As it turns out, the Saints had cause to build two chapels in Llanelly. Two weeks after he dedicated the new chapel in Llanelly, Dan Jones led a party of some 250 Saints from the area, including a large percentage of the Llanelly congregation, down to the docks at Swansea to board the SS Troubadour to commence their journey to Salt Lake City. This was the first but by no means the last Welsh Mormon emigration.

The Saints from the expanding Llanelly Branch were renowned in the Church for their emirgrational tendencies. That meant that their fine chapel was soon too big, so it was sold to become a warehouse for wool, as it was just across the road from the market-place. The small building in Water Street was built as a sort of ecclesiastical waiting-room for those Saints waiting to join the next party heading for Salt Lake.

So we now know there were two purpose-built chapels in Llanelly: the original big 1000-seater and the replacement small 116-seater.

The small building eventually passed out of Church hands. It was used by the Reorganised Church from about 1864, and then it was used by the Elim Pentecostal Church and was later torn down.

But we know very little about the original large church building. There is a fair bit of evidence that the building which is currently forms part of the Iceland Frozen Foods store in Llanelly was originally this large chapel. It is in the right location, and it has architectural features which positively shout chapel, unless someone designed a warehouse in chapel shape and style.

However, there is one other possible origin for this building. In 1839 the English-speaking part of the Welsh congregation of Capel Als had a new chapel, called Park Congregational Church, built in the same area. Is the Iceland stores building the original LDS chapel or is it Park Congregational Church?

In 1860 the Park Church congregation moved to a new chapel in Murray Street because their earlier Park Street premises were too small. This chapel still exists. It will hold nowhere near as many people as the Iceland Frozen Foods store building would have done. We can therefore conclude that the Iceland stores building was most likely the original LDS chapel dedicated by Captain Dan Jones. - Hugh Jones, Llanelli Ward, Merthyr Tydfil Stake