Mountain Ash Town Hall ( cy, Neuadd y Dref Aberpennar) is a municipal structure in Ffrwd Crescent, Mountain Ash, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. The town hall, which was the headquarters of Mountain Ash 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 Irel ...

History

Following significant population growth, largely associated with coal mining industry, the area became an

urban district Urban district may refer to: * District * Urban area * Quarter (urban subdivision) * Neighbourhood Specific subdivisions in some countries: * Urban districts of Denmark * Urban districts of Germany * Urban district (Great Britain and Ireland) (hist ...

in 1894. In this context the new civic leaders decided to procure a municipal building: the site they chose had been unoccupied since the Nixon's Workmen's Institute relocated to the southwest side of the

River Cynon The River Cynon ( cy, Afon Cynon) in South Wales is a main tributary of the Taff. Its source is the rising of Llygad Cynon (OS grid ref SN 95240 07740) at above sea level at Penderyn, Rhondda Cynon Taf and flows roughly southeast, into the Taf ...

in 1899. The rear aspect of the site, which was acquired for £1,000, was bounded by the

Aberdare Canal The Aberdare Canal (Welsh: Camlas Aberdâr) was a canal in Glamorgan, Wales which ran from Aberdare to a junction with the Glamorganshire Canal at Abercynon. It opened in 1812, and served the iron and coal industries for almost 65 years. The ...

. The new building was the subject of a design competition which was won by J. H. Phillips of

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

. It was designed in the

Baroque style The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

, built in

rubble masonry Rubble stone is rough, uneven building stone not laid in regular courses. It may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or ashlar. Analogously, some medieval cathedral walls are outer shells of ashlar with an inn ...

with

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 Vitruv ...

stone dressings at a cost of £5,000 and was completed in 1904. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with nine bays facing onto Ffrwd Crescent; the central section of five bays, which was slightly recessed, featured a doorway flanked by

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

s 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 'r ...

supporting a segmental

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedimen ...

containing a

cartouche In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the fea ...

. There was 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 ...

and a French door on the first floor, while the other bays in the central section contained

casement window A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges at the side. They are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a cas ...

s which were separated by full-height pilasters. The bay to the left of the central section featured a panel with a cartouche above the first floor window, while the bay to the right of the central section featured an

oculus Oculus (a term from Latin ''oculus'', meaning 'eye'), may refer to the following Architecture * Oculus (architecture), a circular opening in the centre of a dome or in a wall Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Oculus'' (film), a 2013 American ...

on the ground floor and a panel with a cartouche on the first floor. The last two bays on the right formed a wing which was significantly set back. There was a clock tower surmounted by a

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, from ...

and a

weather vane A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ''vane'' comes from the Old English word , m ...

at roof level. Internally, the principal room was the concert hall which was capable of accommodating 500 people. The Aberdare Canal, at the rear of the property, ceased to be used for water transport in the early 1920s and was filled in to form the New Cardiff Road in 1933. The town hall continued to serve as the headquarters of Mountain Ash Urban District Council for much of the 20th century but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged Cynon Valley District Council was formed in 1974. The building was subsequently used for the delivery of local services by Cynon Valley District Council and, after 1996, as workspace by the Leisure Department of

Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council ( cy, Cyngor Bwrdeistref Sirol Rhondda Cynon Taf) is the governing body for Rhondda Cynon Taf, one of the Principal Areas of Wales. The council headquarters are located in the community of Cwm Clydach o ...

. The council announced, in March 2021, that, following the award of a grant of £250,000 from the Valleys Taskforce, the building would be converted for use as a co-working hub for small businesses.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1904 City and town halls in Wales Grade II listed buildings in Rhondda Cynon Taf

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...