Celynen Collieries Workmen's Memorial Hall, Newbridge, Caerphilly

Image: © Jeremy Bolwell Taken: 4 Mar 2012

Dated 1924, this building is a community hall in the small town of Newbridge in the South Wales Valleys. It was paid for following the Great War, by small regular subscriptions from coal miners working at the two major coal mines local to the town, the Celynen North and Celynen South pits and served as a memorial to those men who had given their lives in that horrific conflict. It was the era when Lloyd George promised to make Britain 'a land fit for heroes'. The building, nicknamed locally 'the Memo' housed an Art Deco picture house or cinema, a theatre stage and dressing rooms, a dancehall and saw its heyday, maybe, in the 1930s, before a second world war against Nazi Germany overshadowed the community again. After the war the building was in decline somewhat, due to changes in society, the advent of TV and the ageing of its facilities. But although its fabric was fading it continued as a rock venue until the 1980s and as a drinking club until the 1990s, its glories virtually all passed by then. In 2004 it featured in the BBC series 'Restoration' where communities nationwide submitted properties that were in dire need of refurbishment to the programmes viewers and an expert panel, hoping their case would win a grant for restoration. The Memo was a finalist and in effect 'came second' only to a restoration project in Birmingham (the Old Grammar School and Saracen's Head). Today the Memo is back close to the centre of community life locally and despite missing out on money from the TV series is undergoing refurbishment funded from other sources (such as the Heritage Lottery Fund and Caerphilly County Borough Council), such is the importance of buildings of this type and its important role in a town where so many fundamental changes have taken place since 1924.

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0