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reference library l lending library The Blaenavon Institute is in architectural terms one of the best examples in South Wales, and a link with a distinct phase of self-improving working class culture |
Blaenavon Town
The growth of population in the Heads of the Valleys region of South Wales, where most of the ironworks were located, was one of the most dramatic demographic movements of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Workers were initially housed by the iron companies where their labour was required, and the company shops were the main source of goods. Gradually a number of populous towns with centralised urban services and facilities developed. The characteristic form of these towns was chaotic, dictated by the axes of trackways and railways and the availability of land. Blaenavon is among the best examples of these emerging urban centres in South Wales.
Blaenavon's Workmen's Hall and Institute is the most imposing building in the town. It was designed by E A Lansdowne of Newport. The foundation stone was laid in 1893 and the institute was opened in 1895, although the building bears the date 1894. It was constructed by a local builder, John Morgan, and cost £10,000, which was raised by a halfpenny per week levy on the wages of miners and ironworkers, who reduced the cost of construction by contributing voluntary labour. The Institute, formally established in 1880, was a successor in Blaenavon to a Reading and Mutual Improvement Society which had a membership of 110 in 1860. Institutes became widespread in South Wales from the 1890s, and some notable examples were built in the 1920s and 30s with the assistance of the Miners' Welfare Fund. Their culture was adult and male. The characteristic components of an institute building were: