The Great Pottery Throw Down judge Keith Brymer Jones and actor Marj Hogarth are on a quest to transform a 163-year-old chapel in north Wales.<\/p>\n
Embarking on series three of a Channel 4 show documenting their renovation, Our Welsh Chapel Dream, Jones and Hogarth hope to turn Capel Salem, in Pwllheli on the Ll\u0177n Peninsula, into their dream home.<\/p>\n
The couple paid \u00a3200,000 in cash to buy the property in September 2022 and moved in over a year ago. But the hard work is far from over, as they take on the next stage of renovations.<\/p>\n
Jones said the couple get “quite a lot of drive-by fans” while they are working on the property. People even offer to take the pair out for a drink, Hogarth added.<\/p>\n
The Grade II-listed chapel and adjoining Sunday school measures 6,500 sq ft [Cyngor Gwynedd planning documents]<\/p>\n
Jones said he started looking for a new place to live during lockdown, including old petrol stations, cinemas and libraries, “anything that basically wasn’t a house”, he said.<\/p>\n
“This chapel came up in north Wales, in a place I couldn’t pronounce, which I can pronounce now… we both can.”<\/p>\n
He said the chapel “looked amazing” and was listed at a price they could afford.<\/p>\n
“We knew it was derelict, it would have been unoccupied for 14 years, but we jumped in the car and went to have a look at it, and that was that really.”<\/p>\n
Jones felt like he was coming back to his “roots” as his parents were from Swansea and Cardiff.<\/p>\n
Hogarth had never been to north Wales before but found out that her father, who was a salesman of marine engines, had Pwllheli as his patch.<\/p>\n
‘Everyone has a story to tell about the building’<\/h2>\n
The couple said they felt like they had found their tribe in Pwllheli, adding: “It’s not just the individual people, it’s the whole unspoken ethos about community here. It’s really lovely.<\/p>\n
“There’s a certain level of acceptance of all people. They’re all very honest with you.”<\/p>\n
Speaking on how to preserve the history of the building, Hogarth said: “I think you have to tread very carefully.”<\/p>\n
Throughout the decades the chapel has been used for weddings, funerals, christenings – even piano lessons.<\/p>\n
Jones added: “Everyone has a story to tell about the building and that’s really lovely, but you have to be respectful of that as well.<\/p>\n
“You walk a fine line between understanding people’s emotional connection and creating something that’s sustainable.”<\/p>\n
Keith, who has Welsh ancestry, said the couple will be staying in Pwllheli “for good” [Patch Dolan]<\/p>\n
The couple have documented the “mammoth renovation” project on their Channel 4 show and said the “biggest curve ball” they encountered so far was dealing with bird poo and dry rot.<\/p>\n
Jones said: “We had a load of pigeon guano in the studio hall, or the Sunday school hall, and you literally couldn’t walk in there.<\/p>\n
“Your eyes would stream from the ammonia. It was mad.<\/p>\n
“The second and the most ongoing challenge is dry rot in the building. It’s so clever and it gets everywhere.”<\/p>\n
He said: “We’re kind of up to skip 53 of dry rot, so we’re winning the battle now.”<\/p>\n
Despite the bumps in the road, they said it was “great to get our creative juices flowing” and “wonderful to do it with the person you love”.<\/p>\n
‘We’re here for good’<\/h2>\n
Jones and Hogarth have got a lot of attention from fans of the show visiting Pwllheli.<\/p>\n
“They drive down and turn their head to see if they can see us. I’m usually lifting something in the yard, bags of clay or whatever,” Jones said.<\/p>\n
“There was this couple, they’d obviously been to a campsite for the week and the car came screeching to a halt outside the gate. A woman got out and said ‘Oh my God, it’s you! It’s you! Can I take a picture?’<\/p>\n
“She nearly got run over by another car.”<\/p>\n
Jones said the couple had to put a sign on the gates, saying: “We get 60 to 80 people a day. If we see you in the yard, we’ll wave, but we can’t stop and say hello to everyone because we won’t get anything done.”<\/p>\n
He said the property was the couple’s “forever home”, adding: “We’re here for good.”<\/p>\n
More top stories<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Great Pottery Throw Down judge Keith Brymer Jones and actor Marj Hogarth are on a quest to transform a 163-year-old chapel in north Wales. Embarking on series three of a Channel 4 show documenting their renovation, Our Welsh Chapel Dream, Jones and Hogarth hope to turn Capel Salem, in Pwllheli on the Ll\u0177n Peninsula, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2379233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[460540,463225,361682,463227,463226,463224],"class_list":["post-2379232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-keith-brymer-jones","tag-marj-hogarth","tag-north-wales","tag-our-welsh-chapel-dream","tag-patch-dolan","tag-pwllheli"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/TV-stars-renovating-Welsh-chapel-into-dream-home-here-for.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2379232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2379232"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2379232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2379234,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2379232\/revisions\/2379234"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2379233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2379232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2379232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2379232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}