Tin Chapels or 'tin tabernacles' are a type of prefabricated building made from corrugated galvanised iron developed in the mid-19th century in Great Britain. The Industrial Revolution was a time of great population expansion and movement. Towns and cities expanded as the workforce moved into the new industrial areas resulting in the building of more than 4,000 churches, chapels and mission halls. Often built in previously undeveloped areas, pit villages near railway works and in more isolated rural and coastal locations. Their budget resources were in high supply throughout the country and in the post-war era they were essential as part of the country’s effort to rebuild the areas which had lost so many churches during bombing raids. As religious culture has diminished and architecture changed throughout the decades, many of them are now demolished or hidden and abandoned across the British landscape yet several tin tabernacles survive as places of worship. Some have even earned listed building status and some have been converted to other uses. Almost all of the remaining tabernacles in England are now gone, whilst some redundant chapels have been moved to museums for preservation, the Welsh landscape has kept many of them hidden amongst the overgrowth and within quiet and undisturbed villages. I kept my eye out over the previous year for examples of these lost, mysterious little buildings to see for myself how nature has taken some of them back in the absence of their past worshippers.
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