Owner's ambitious plans for Old Armoury's future

* Ambitious plans ... the Old Armoury.

The woman who rescued an historic Llangollen building from dereliction has revealed her ambitious plans for its future.

Sue Hargreaves bought the empty and rundown Old Armoury, dating back to 1834, two years ago and embarked on an extensive renovation programme which has seen her introduce displays giving a flavour of its past uses as a lock-up jail and a police station.

And at the end of a fascinating talk about the project at Llangollen Museum on Tuesday night she gave details of her plan to complete the transformation of the building, which lies between between the A5 and Hall Street.

The scheme would see the armoury once again separated from the shop next door as it originally was before the first floor was turned into an army drill hall running the length of the first floor above the two buildings in the 1870s.

The ground floor of the armoury would then house a full reconstruction of the original lock-up while a small community hall, for exhibition and educational purposes, is created upstairs.

While the ground floor of the property next door would remain as a shop, a studio flat would be created above it, with income from its letting being used to help pay for the running of the armoury and hall.

In her talk, Sue Hargreaves said that when she bought the armoury two years ago she knew very little about it but immediately began looking into its history.

She started her investigation from the basis that it had been a police station but soon found there were no details of this use recorded at the Denbighshire county archives in Ruthin.

However, she did find a number of valuable documents including an original floor plan for the building, showing accommodation for a jailer and two cells downstairs with a small courthouse upstairs.

The building was in a poor condition and volunteers from Llangollen’s Tidy Town Team stepped in to clear it up and strip it back to basics.

Sue then decided to recreate, as faithfully as possible, the building’s earliest days as a lock-up and police station.

However, she is clear that it was never a fully-fledged jail but rather a place to hold prisoners temporarily until they could be brought before the magistrates.

By September 2012 the building was ready to be shown off to the public during Denbighshire’s Open Doors history event when it attracted 300 visitors on just two afternoons.

The armoury is still open to visitors on request to Sue who has made her recreation of the police station and lock-up as authentic as possible by kitting it out with props such as a Victorian policeman’s truncheon and handcuffs.

She told her audience at the museum that she had just submitted an application to the county council for listed building consent to carry out the alterations which will enable her to finalise her renovation plan.

“I want to restore the building to the same size it used to be, with no drill hall above, using the first floor of the armoury as an exhibition and education centre,” she said.

“We would have art and sculpture displays and perhaps Welsh classes there. I have had enquiries from a number of organisations who say they would be interested in using it once it is set up.

“We would form an organisation to run the building and the shop and flat next door. Its provisional title is Llangollen Arts Community and Education (LACE).

“The shop next door would stay as it is and have a studio flat above. The income from letting the flat would supplement the lock-up and the community hall.”

Old Armoury facts

·   The building was designed by the county architect for Denbighshire and is the only known building in Llangollen constructed from limestone.

·    Its first “keeper” was  a David Davies who lived in Chapel Street.

·    Sue’s research shows one of the lock-up’s prisoners was an Edward Hamer of Chirk who was arrested in 1860 after being found in possession of a chisel and poker and suspected of being about to break into a dwelling. He and another man, Thomas Humphreys, were eventually acquitted of the crime when they appeared at Ruthin quarter sessions. Sue has a recreation of Hamer lying on a bed in one of the cells – with his poker and chisel hidden underneath it.

·  Denbighshire was the first non-metropolitan county in Britain to set up its own police force in the 1840s, but Sue has been able to find very few details about the armoury being a police station. However, one piece of evidence for this comes in a reference made to Llangollen Fair in the book Wild Wales by George Borrow in which he details a family holiday through north Wales in 1854. The fair was held in a square (now Victoria Square) a principal feature of which was a police station, according to the author.

·   In 1871 the building was sold to local solicitor Charles Richards, with the purchase price apparently being less than the original cost of construction. In 1879 it became a base for the 9^th Denbighshire Rifle Volunteers, which is why the drill hall was built above both the former lock-up/police station and the adjacent shop. It was at this time it became known as the armoury.

It's almost time for the Accrington Pals to march

It's almost curtain-up time for the Twenty Club’s production of Peter Whelan's classic play The Accrington Pals.

* David Connolly, Andy Evans, Ally Goodman and Andrew Sully in a scene from the play. 

 

The Llangollen-based group is staging the moving First World War drama from March 6-8 in Llangollen Town Hall to mark the 100^th anniversary of the start of the conflict in 1914. 

The Accrington Pals is based on the true story of how the smallest town in England raised a volunteer force to fight in the war, contrasting life at the front and in the 1916 Battle of the Somme with the women left behind.


* Left: Director Rachel
Morris with the famous
Kitchener recruiting
poster from World War
One.



* Right: Natalie Evans
and Anna Turner
rehearse for the play.


* Pictures by Dave Roberts

* For more details visit facebook.com/twentyclub.

Plas Madoc closure decision delayed

Wrexham.com is reporting that Wrexham councillors have voted to delay a decision on the closure of Plas Madoc leisure centre until a review of the issue has been carried out.

For the full story see: http://www.wrexham.com/news/reprieve-plas-madoc-closure-reviewed-41456.html

County gives reasons for bottle bank removal

* The recycling area now minus the bottle bank.

Denbighshire County Council has been explaining the reasoning behind the removal of the bottle bank from the Market street car park which was highlighted by llanblogger recently.

A council spokesperson said: "Our request to reduce the number of bottle banks was because the site was uneconomical due to the very low volumes.

"Before countywide kerbside recycling, the contractor was getting 7-8 tonnes of glass from the site every month, it has now dropped to a less than 1 tonne per month.

"Our request for the contractor to remove banks meant that instead of coming to the site every 5-6 weeks, he would have to attend at least twice as often and collect a fraction of the volume every time.

"It's just not viable for them to do this, particularly given Denbighshire is on the fringe of the operating area.

"The last remaining issue is whether the council could pay the contractor a premium to attend. Our estimate is that it would probably cost in the region of £100 per tonne to retain the service in Llangollen as we wanted it and that is an unjustifiable rate.

"If householders (the only people who should use the bottle banks) instead put their glass bottles with their fortnightly recycling collection at home it will actually generate more revenues (£20 per tonne) for the council and deliver greater value to the taxpayer.

"Several local authorities in England are currently removing all their recycling banks because reduced volumes have made them more expensive to operate than their household collections.

"In Denbighshire, all the plastic bottle and can recycling banks were removed three years ago because the costs became excessive given that household collections were offered everywhere."

* If you have any views on the removal of the bottle bank, please send them by email to llanblogger@gmail.com

Old hospital could be sold to housing association

* The former Cottage Hospital could be sold to a housing association,

according to the health board.

The former Llangollen Cottage Hospital looks set to be sold to a housing association.

In view of speculation about its fate, llanblogger submitted a Freedom of Information request to its owners, the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, asking what plans it had for the 137-year-old building on Abbey Road, which has been empty since the hospital closed last March.

We also sought details of the asking price if the building was offered for sale on the open market.

In its a reply, the board says: “Local health boards in Wales are required to act in accordance with a protocol established by the Welsh Government where it is determined whether surplus land can be used to implement the Welsh Government’s objectives for the delivery of affordable housing in Wales. 

“The health board is therefore currently considering the sale of Llangollen Hospital to a local housing association.”

The reply adds: “We anticipate that the sale to the housing association will proceed. 

“However, should the property be offered for sale on the open market we would in the first instance seek advice from local agents in respect of an asking price.”

There are no details about which housing association the board is in negotiations with.

The hospital now lies empty, boarded up and surrounded by security fencing after it was closed almost a year ago despite an intense local campaign to save it from closure.

Its death knell was sounded after the health board revealed plans to build a new £5.5 million health centre on the site of the old River Lodge on the A539.  

This scheme was given the go-ahead by Denbighshire’s planning committee last week.

The replacement facility means the axe will also fall on the existing Llangollen Health Centre in Regent Street.

The health board said recently that it would follow the same process for disposal of this building – a former primary school – as the hospital, first exploring the possibility of using the site for housing and then offering it for sale if this is not feasible.  

Eat a hearty breakfast to support charity

Fancy eating a hearty breakfast to kick start your metabolism and help raise funds for a good cause at the same time?

 

Then why not join the Inner Wheel for The Big Breakfast on Wednesday, February 26 at The Community Hall, Regent Street, Llangollen, from 9 - 10.30am.

All proceeds are in aid of Cancer Research.

There will be a knitted garments stall, raffle and bring & buy.

Tickets are £6 per person.
 

Skates urges people on to the ice to try curling

* Ken Skates, right, in his curling days.

 

A WELSH Assembly Member who is a former champion curler is urging more people to take up the sport after the success of Team GB at the Winter Olympics in Russia.

Great Britain’s men won a silver medal at the Sochi Games last Friday to add to the bronze won by the women’s team earlier in the week.

And Clwyd South AM Ken Skates, who won a First Province of Wales Premier League title when he played for the Mid Wales Marauders, said he hoped more people would try their hand at the ‘fantastic’ sport as a result.

“Curling is a fantastic sport and I’d certainly recommend it to anyone who has had their appetite for something new whetted by the success of our British teams at the Winter Olympics,” he said.

“It requires a lot of discipline, persistence and patience, but it’s also great fun. The Welsh Curling Association is based in Deeside and there are several teams across North East Wales. There are also a number of curling taster sessions planned next months for people who are interested in taking it up – go and give it a try!”

The taster sessions at Deeside Leisure Centre, Queensferry, are from 5pm-9pm on March 3, March 10 and March 17. The fees are £5 for adults (21 and over) and £3 for juniors, and no equipment is needed.