Antiques Roadshow calls on others to save 'historic structures'

• Wayne Colquhoun, 60, has been transforming Capel Salem in Corris, Wales

An Antiques Roadshow expert who bought a former chapel for £60,000 to convert it into a home and workshop has called on others to follow suit in order to ‘save the historic structures’.

Wayne Colquhoun, 60, has snapped up the Grade II-listed Capel Salem in Corris – a former slate mining village in Wales.

He said he fell in love with the 1868 romantic slate structure and says there was a Bible still on the pulpit ‘as though the congregation had walked out and closed the door’.

Mr Colquhoun, who joined the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow in 2015, has since transformed the upper gallery into a three-bed apartment by adding floorboards to cover half of the gallery.

He is currently in the process of carrying out work on the lower level to turn it into his antiques and fine art shop.

Wayne Colquhoun, 60, has bought the Grade II-listed Capel Salem in Corris – a former slate mining village in Wales

He is currently in the process of carrying out work on the lower level to turn it into his antiques and fine art shop

The building had fallen into disrepair with the chapel upkeep becoming too expensive for the diminishing congregation and was on the market in 2017.

Mr Colquhoun specialises in restoring historic buildings and said: ‘When I bought it the bible was still on the pulpit, as though the congregation had walked out and closed the door.

‘When people close the doors on old buildings- that’s the danger point. It gets damp and dry rot sets in.

‘These historic structures are evocative of Welsh history and have to be saved – we need people who will put their heart and soul into them because it’s easy to butcher conversions.’

Mr Colquhoun aims to maintain the lower space and Canadian pitch pine panelling for use as his Antiques and Fine Art shop, moved from Liverpool, plus a pottery and sculpture workshop.

He aims to keep as many original features of the property as possible, from its single-glazed arched windows to reusing the pews as kitchen work surfaces.

Mr Colquhoun is in the process of transforming the lower level into his antiques and fine art shop.

He hopes to hold talks and workshops in the space, aiming to build up to employing locals and ‘giving back’ to the community.

Mr Colquhoun joined the BBC ‘s Antiques Roadshow in 2015 (pictured here on the show at Alexandra Gardens in March)

He has since transformed the upper gallery into a three-bed apartment by adding floorboards to cover half of the gallery

The work is still ongoing to restore the old building which was placed on the market in 2017

Across Wales, chapels fall into the landscape through disrepair, demolition or ‘insensitive conversion’.

Just 500 feet away sits Holy Trinity Church which closed its doors in 2020 not through lack of attendance, but through disrepair.

Neil Sumner chair of Welsh Religious Buildings Trust wrote that the redundancy of chapels in Wales is due to a 19th century ‘expansionist fervour’ of Nonconformist Chapels (i.e. Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists).

In 1800 Caernarfonshire there were 30 chapels, rising to 221 in 1851, representing a 700 per cent increase.

Combining this flurry of builds with the 20th-century fall in attendance, Sumner wrote ‘the result is there are now too many buildings for current needs’.

In an attempt to preserve the character of the increasing chapel conversions, historic environment service Cadw has issued guidelines including keeping the front of the chapels untouched, retaining rooms with self-supporting partitions and allowing ‘characteristic features to show through the new walls and floors’.

Meanwhile the Buildings Trust attempt to conserve Welsh chapels through fundraising and management.

After leaving school Wayne went on to become a specialist in the restoration of historic and listed buildings.

Wayne has run an art gallery for over two decades and is an independent consultant whose many clients include national museums.

He said he fell in love with the 1868 romantic slate structure and says there was a Bible still on the pulpit ‘as though the congregation had walked out and closed the door’

He hopes to hold talks and workshops in the space, aiming to build up to employing locals and ‘giving back’ to the community

The building had fallen into disrepair with the chapel upkeep becoming too expensive for the diminishing congregation and was on the market in 2017

The last remaining pew in the upper gallery at Chapel Salem. Mr Colquhoun wrote on his Instagram that a joiner had written his name on the back in 1895

Mr Colquhoun aims to keep as many original features of the property as possible, from its single-glazed arched windows to reusing the pews as kitchen work surfaces

An old photograph of a congregation outside the Chapel Salem when it was in use

Though Wayne specialises in Art Deco, Art Nouveau and the Applied Arts he loves many other periods and has a general knowledge with over 30 years experience.

He has built up several collections of sculptures and bronzes selling his first to fund a Grand Tour around Europe studying architecture.

In his spare time he plays Jazz clarinet and spends part of his weekends as a potter and sculptor and still tries to take a life drawing class once a week.

Wayne says ‘one of the things that he would dearly love to find on the Antiques Roadshow would be a bronze panther by the sculptor Rembrant Bugatti. Or maybe a piece of furniture by his father Carlo. Or one of his bother Ettore’s remarkable creations.’

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