Maerdy Workmen’s Hall and Institute

Maerdy Workmen’s Hall and Institute.

Photographs taken in August 2007.

In late February 2008 the last standing walls of the building were demolished.

Aled Blake wrote in the Western Mail newspaper on July 15, 2005 : ”

Built in 1905 on land given to the workmen of the collieries in Maerdy by landlords, the hall has something of a chequered history.

The institute cost £9,000 to build and furnish and was on three floors and had a lesser hall, billiards room and offices in the basement, with a women’s reading room, men’s reading room, library and refreshment room.

The third floor had a large hall capable of holding 1,000 people. In 1922 the building burnt down, killing its then treasurer, John Jones, whose body was found in the caretakers’ cottage next door.

A little more than two years later, in 1925, the institute was reopened, the miners having raised £20,000 for its rebuilding.

But in the 21st century it is a sad, abandoned relic of Maerdy’s once great past. This last outpost of the Rhondda Fach’s proud past is to have another reminder of coal’s rich legacy taken away.”

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