Trefeca

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Trefeca, also spelled Trefecca or Trevecca, is in south Powys, Wales, between Talgarth and Llangorse Lake. It was the birthplace and home of Howell Harris (1714–1773), a leading figure in the Welsh Methodist revival. In 1752 he founded a Christian community there called Teulu Trefeca, inspired by the Moravian Herrnhut community.

John Wesley preached for Harris’s group at Trevecca in August 1769, on the first anniversary of Trevecca College. Harris’s house was given a striking neo-Gothic addition, one of the first of its kind in Wales, completed by 1772.

In 1768 Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, established a theological seminary at Trevecca. The site choice helped Harris supervise the new institution. The college’s opening occurred around the same time as six St Edmund Hall students were expelled for Methodist leanings; most of those students were sponsored by the Countess.

Trevecca was called a college, which set it apart from other Dissenting Academies. But many students were not wealthy, and study was often interrupted by preaching tours around Britain.

The Trevecca College moved to Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, in 1792, where the building became College Farm. Cheshunt College later joined the Congregational Union and moved to Cambridge in 1906, eventually merging with Westminster College in 1967.

In Wales, a Bala revival influenced church education. In 1837, Lewis Edwards and David Charles opened a Welsh Calvinistic Methodist school at Bala. In 1842 a South Wales college opened at Trevecca, with David Charles as principal from 1842 to 1863. After Edwards’s death, Bala grew in importance again.

In 1872 a Harris Memorial Chapel was added at Treveca, now Coleg Trefeca, a lay training center for the Presbyterian Church of Wales. In 1905 David Davies of Llandinam offered a large building in Aberystwyth to unite the North and South theological colleges; the South accepted, and Trevecca became a preparatory school. In 1906 the United Theological College opened in Aberystwyth under Owen Prys.

The Howell Harris Museum is at Coleg Trefeca and is open by appointment, focusing on Harris and Teulu Trefeca.