Tredegar Town Hall ( cy, Neuadd y Dref Tredegar) is a municipal structure in The Circle,

Tredegar Tredegar (pronounced , ) is a town and community situated on the banks of the Sirhowy River in the county borough of Blaenau Gwent, in the southeast of Wales. Within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire, it became an early centre of the ...

, Wales. The town hall, which was the headquarters of Tredegar Urban District Council, is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

History

The first building on the site formed part of an early 19th century initiative by the

industrialist A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through perso ...

Samuel Homfray Samuel Homfray (1762 – 22 May 1822) was an English industrialist during the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain, associated with the early iron industry in South Wales. Samuel was the son of a successful ironmaster, Francis Homfray, and th ...

, to create a central market place for the town: the first town hall was one of the buildings erected at that time and was completed in 1818. It incorporated a school from 1838. After the first town hall became dilapidated in the late 19th century, civic leaders decided to demolish it and build a new structure on the same site: the new building was designed in the

Gothic Revival style Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

, built in

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitr ...

stone and was officially opened on 24 December 1892. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with seven bays facing onto The Circle; the central bay, which slightly projected forward, featured an arched doorway with

colonette A colonnette is a small slender column, usually decorative, which supports a beam or lintel. Colonettes have also been used to refer to a feature of furnishings such as a dressing table and case clock, and even studied by archeologists in Roman ...

s supporting a stone surround and

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or ' ...

supporting a

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

and a

balcony A balcony (from it, balcone, "scaffold") is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade, usually above the ground floor. Types The traditional Maltese balcony is ...

. There were four-light windows in the other bays on the ground floor. On the first floor, there were large nine-light

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid sup ...

ed windows with gables above in the central bay and in the centre of each of the two side sections. The gables contained roundels in the tympanae. As well as rooms for the civic leaders, the building also incorporated facilities for the county court. After significant population growth, largely associated with coal mining, the area became an

urban district Linnainmaa

Urban district may refer to: * District * Urban area * Quarter (ur ...

with the town hall as its headquarters in 1894. The town hall was primarily used as a venue for civic events after the urban district council acquired

Bedwellty House Bedwellty House is a Grade II-listed house and gardens in Tredegar, in the Sirhowy Valley in south-east Wales. It was built in the early 19th century on the site of an earlier building and subsequently enlarged into its present form by mid-century ...

and converted it into offices for council officers and their departments in 1901. After being elected as the

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house ...

for

Ebbw Vale Ebbw Vale (; cy, Glynebwy) is a town at the head of the valley formed by the Ebbw Fawr tributary of the Ebbw River in Wales. It is the largest town and the administrative centre of Blaenau Gwent county borough. The Ebbw Vale and Brynmawr con ...

for the first time at the 1929 general election, the

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

and future Deputy Leader of the party,

Aneurin Bevan Aneurin "Nye" Bevan PC (; 15 November 1897 – 6 July 1960) was a Welsh Labour Party politician, noted for tenure as Minister of Health in Clement Attlee's government in which he spearheaded the creation of the British National Heal ...

, delivered a speech from the balcony of the town hall on 31 May 1929. Following the formation of the enlarged Blaenau Gwent District Council in 1974, there was limited demand for civic events in the town and the building was redeveloped and re-opened as the National Coal Board Club (usually referred to as the "N. C . B. Club"). After the owners of the building went into liquidation, the club closed in 2010, and the building has remained vacant and deteriorating since then.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1892 City and town halls in Wales Tredegar Grade II listed buildings in Blaenau Gwent