The first Park English Presbyterian Chapel was built in 1843, was registered for solomnising marriages on 20th April 1850 (1), and in the 1851 Religious Census was described by minister Ebenezer Powell "This is one of the Home Mission Stations of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists. All the services are carried on in the English language". The same census recorded that there were 110 free sittings and 90 other.
In 1864, the Rev Powell decided that a new chapel was required, asking the Marquis of Westminster for his assistance in carrying out the scheme. In July 1864, the Marquis visited the site a'satisfied himself as to its desirability', upon which he gave the sum of £50 towards the chapel and £50 towards a reading room which he suggested should be incorporated into the building of the chapel. (2)
By September, the architect Thomas M Lockwood of Chester had been employed to draw up plans and specifications, and an advert for tenders for the building of the chapel put out. (3) The foundation stone was laid in 1865 (the day and month not visible due to erosion of the stone) by Robert A MacFie Esquire of Liverpool. According to the Holt Historical Society, the chapel opened in Christmas Day 1865, the total cost including hymn books and harmonium being £1,600 and £960 having been raised. Certification of Holt Prebyterian Church as a place of public religious worship and for solomnising of marriages took place on 19th March 1866 by the Superintendant Registrar, John Bury, detailing that the that this formed a substitution for the now-disused building called Calvinistic Methodist Chapel of Holt. (4) A tea party celebrating the first anniversary of the chapel took place on 22 July 1866, when it was reported that £100 debt remained on the chapel. (5)
The chapel is built of roughly coursed sandstone blocks in the Gothic style with a gable-entry plan on to Castle Street. The façade has a central entrance porch, also gabled, containing a pointed arch doorway with decorative foliate capitals and a quatrefoil, stained glass, light above the door, a pair of narrow, cup-headed windows to either side elevation. Above, two pairs of windows with trefoil heads, central stone bar with foliate decoration and central cinquefoil lights with triangular arch surrounds. Between is a smaller, single light version. To the apex of the elevation is a pointed arch louvre with scalloped decoration. On the left corner (from street view) is a spire with open belfry section, decorated with stepped buttresses and trefoil carvings. The side elevations have further pairs of trefoil headed windows, and a central gables with taller windows and corner buttresses. The rear school room is also of sandstone, with simpler lancet windows.
The interior is decribed by Cadw in their listing decription:
"There is a fairly complete contemporary scheme. Arch-braced roof timbers rise from painted stone corbels; there is a decorative timber frieze. 4 and 5 pointed star shapes are motifs which are carried through from the glass in the tracery to pierced designs in the roof joinery and incised shapes on the pew ends. Where the windows are paired they are separated by stone shafts with foliated capitals. At the liturgical W end there is a pitch pine lobby with blind cusped arcading. At the liturgical E end is a central pulpit of similar character with steps up on each side with arcaded balustrading. A door on each side leads off to a schoolroom. Windows have coloured and painted glass in the tracery but are otherwise plain with coloured glass margins. Pews are of pitch pine with painted numbers. On the liturgical E wall are 3 later C19 monuments in Neoclassical style commemorating former ministers and elders of the church; two of them are by Mossford of Overton. The schoolroom has exposed timbers in the roof." Park is now Grade II Listed as a good example of a presbyterian chapel by a noted architect and containing a good contemporary interior. (6)
The RCCEORBWM of 1905 recorded that the chapel seated 320 and the Sunday School 200 and the value was £2,000.
The chapel was further modified in the late nineteenth and the late twentieth century but the present structure is substantially that of 1865. the chapel was put onto the market towards the end of 2022 after closing for worship.
RCAHMW, December 2009(1) Caernarvon & Denbigh Herald, Saturday 04 May 1850
(2) Wrexham & Denbighshire News 16th July 1864
(3) Wrexham & Denbighshire Advertiser, 17th September 1864
(4) Wrexham & Denbighshire Advertiser, 24th March 1866
(5) Wrexham & Denbighshire Advertiser, 11th August 1866
(6) Cadw Listed Building description