IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
High Street, NEWPORT, NP11 4FW

Anfield House is on the left.

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.

Dated 1908 this building is a workmen's institute, one of many built around the turn of the 20th century in working class communities UK wide. The drive came from the maturing of what had been in the second half of the 19th century new and rapidly expanding communities that often lacked traditional hubs, amenities and focus. Social improvement and education were very important to the working man, who although they often lacked schooling, training or qualifications were highly intelligent, motivated and enlightened and wanted successive generations to benefit from opportunites denied to them by the accident of their birth and class. Thus in 1898 interested parties within the local community elected a committee tasked with providing an institute for Newbridge and after a decade of hard fund raising the building was completed, ready to be opened by the local mineowner. It housed a library and a reading room, where men could research politics, history, philosophy, religion or whatever interested them, educate themselves and meet likeminded fellows. After discussing Marx, Engels or Darwin they could unwind with a game of billiards or lobby to get themselves elected onto the committee which met in a committee room to focus further on upgrading community facilities, engendering community cohesion and making Newbridge a place where people wanted to stay and contribute to.

Set back from the south side of High Street.

Three bulldog statues greet visitors to Rose Lyn Bungalow, High Street premises of Bulldog Plumbing & Heating. In the background are black-suited dancing depictions of John Belushi as "Joliet" Jake Blues and Dan Aykroyd as Elwood Blues in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers.

Looking towards and beyond High Street.

The 45 metre long path descends from the north side of Tramroadside.

Looking away from the town centre from near the corner of Tyllwyd Place. http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5226624

The Con(stitutional) Club is on the corner of High Street and Tyllwyd Place. The year 1910 is displayed at lower roof level (19 under one gable, 10 under the other).

If a vehicle is approaching from ahead, a vehicle on this side of the narrowing of the roadway must wait behind the broken white lines. Double yellow lines indicate no parking at any time.