Tabernacle Congregational Church
Serving Haverfordwest since 1774
Our Story
From a small house church in Georgian-era City Road, Tabernacle has grown into a dynamic centre of faith and spirituality. We are still leading people on the Way of Jesus, almost three centuries later.
From House Church to Chapel
In the 1740s, a small group of Calvinistic Methodists and Moravians began meeting in a private home in Cokey Street (modern-day City Road) for study and fellowship, inspired by the work of the great preachers Howell Harris and George Whitefield. This "Cokey Street Society" soon outgrew its original home, and in 1774, purchased two gardens at the bottom of City Road, where they built their own chapel. Taking their cue from Whitefield's own church in London, they named their new chapel Tabernacle. In 1790, following a dispute over a lay preacher administering Communion, Tabernacle separated from the Methodist Association. It became Congregational, and has been ever since.
From Church Plant to Institution
The first half of the 19th century was a period of slow growth. Things began to change in 1852 when a new minster, Thomas G. Stamper, arrived. He was the first of several long-serving ministers who guided Tabernacle through a period of growth--in membership, in buildings, and in community influence. A modern schoolroom (now the Community Centre) was built in 1864, and a renovation and enlargement of the chapel itself was completed in 1874. This is substantially the Tabernacle campus we enjoy today. By the early 20th century, Tabernacle was called by one writer a "cathedral of Congregationalism"--a reflection both of its physical scale and of its place in the life of Haverfordwest.
Trials and Triumphs
Alongside the Haverfordwest community, Tabernacle was deeply involved in both World Wars, with men of the church fighting and dying at the front. In the Second World War, the chapel itself was in the line of fire, shaken by German bombs in City Road in September 1940. The church's recreation area was converted into a victory garden. In the postwar years, Tabernacle was a centre of cultural life in the town, putting on plays, operettas, and concerts. In the 1980s, Tabernacle joined the Congregational Federation, a voluntary association of churches in Great Britain.