At the beginning of the year 1852 the members who lived in the village and Abernant started talking about building a chapel in the middle of the place; the third branch of Carmel and, before it was completed, on the 2nd of December 1852 the Lease for Bethania Chapel was drawn up and was signed on the 12th of November 1853.  Those on the lease were John Jenkins, Coed Owen, Cantref parish, Breconshire, farmer (and the owner (??) of the said land at the time) and David Davies, Ynysllwyd House, Aberdare and William Griffiths, Ironmonger, Aberdare. The chapel, vestry etc stand on what was then known as “Cae Tirion” property of Ynysllwyd and measuring nine hundred and twenty-six square yards and the Lease was to run for 999 years from the year 1852, at a rate of £7 14s. 6d. a year to be paid in two half-yearly instalments on the 1st of November and the 1st of May.  The following were to be built on the land – one Chapel, or House of Worship, one Vestry or Schoolroom belonging to the Chapel, together with a Stable to be used by persons attending the chapel: also, two dwelling houses and the small buildings necessary for such buildings.

That, briefly, is the content of Bethania’s Lease, which is safe in the Concord Chest in Pontypridd.

I do not think that many people know that the entrance to the Chapel was originally to be from Monk Street, behind the Black Lion but Mr. Griffiths and friends agreed with the owner of the Lion to change two pieces of land, the landlord to give a piece of land south of his house the present entrance to the chapel, for the piece of land behind the hotel, where the empty brewing house stands at present.  This is not an unfounded assumption, but a fact that was published in the “Gwladgarwr” 54 years ago and an annoyance to some neighbours at that time.

We can now start on the brief history of Bethania, and it will indeed be brief, as there are no church records at all, apart from the names of the members and their contributions etc. It branched out from Carmel at the beginning of 1854, but why the branch was called Bethania we do not know unless it was named after the Bethania near Jerusalem, where Jesus often loved to visit, which shows that he had friends and disciples there, the ones he loved. We believe the name means “House of Poverty” and that lepers and paupers inhabited it at the time, although they do not reside there today, although the poor and poverty remain, as they do in Bethania, Aberdare.