I was saddened to hear this week that Bryn Seion chapel in Ystrad Mynach will be closing its doors for the last time on Sunday. The chapel has served the area since 1906, and has been a focal point of Welsh life not only in the town of Ystrad Mynach itself, but throughout the valley as a whole. It was a branch of the old chapel in Hengoed, and over many years generations of families marked the milestones of their lives within its walls: baptisms, weddings and funerals. So many of us attended a youth club, the Band of Hope, in the vestry when we were little, and took part in nativity plays—sometimes as Mary, sometimes as a shepherd, sometimes as a star in the heavens.

Bryn Seion wasn’t just a building, but the heart of a community: a place for celebration and devotion, a place to remember and to grieve. It was a building where you would like to see the walls not just speaking but dancing, singing their songs of praise. Its loss will not just be felt in the Baptist community, but among families and streets the length and breadth of the valley. And, although the numbers at the service on Sunday will be limited, in spirit the chapel will be full of old friends.