The Dowlais Sanitary Laundry Company

by J Ann Lewis

At a meeting held in September 1901 at Cambria Chambers, North Street in Dowlais by the Sanitary Laundry Company Ltd, it was decided to open the Dowlais Sanitary Laundry Company in Pant, with a capital of £3,000 in 300 shares at £10 each.

The ground near Caeracca Villas, described as an excellent site, was leased on 1 November 1901 from Mr Edward Davies, Machen, for a period of 999 years at a reduced rent of £14 per year while it was used as a laundry. It was formally opened on 14 September 1904, with Miss Wood being the first manageress.

Upon receipt of a postcard, a horse drawn van would collect the parcels. All British machinery was used and the water came from a fresh water spring a few hundred yards up the mountain.

After the Laundry closed (unfortunately I have been able to find the exact date of its closure), on 22 September 1933, the then owner, Miss Bertha Jenkins (Consett), gave the building to Christ Church to be used as a much-needed church hall.

On 23 November 1942, as part of the war effort, the hall became a British Restaurant – the first to be opened in the area. This restaurant formed a link in the chain of communal feeding in South Wales, with the policy that people should never again lack food, and that the food eaten should be the kind to make them strong and healthy.

The feeling was that the restaurant was ‘a bit out of the way’, but some thought the bus service was such, that the hall’s position would be of no hindrance to its success. It was opened by Mr E Hill-Snook (Divisional Food Officer), with about 200 people attending the opening ceremony. As well as the meals served on the premises, an outdoor scheme was introduced so that people wishing to take cooked dinners home could do so for the sum of 8d per head.

After the war, the hall was returned to the church until the cost of the upkeep proved too great. By September 1959, the church had leased the hall to Webber’s Cake Factory. Three men, Charlie Webber, K Hill and Bob Roberts opened the factory, and were joined a year later by Bill Healey and Mr Clark, all five becoming managing directors. The factory employed 12 full-time workers, and several part-time workers during busy periods. At their peak they had three vans on the road, selling cakes wholesale, but due to the economic slump in the 1960s, the first was forced to close in December 1966.

The hall remained empty for a while until a group of local residents approached the directors of Webbers Cake Factory asking to buy the building to open a social club, and in 1968/9 the new Pant Social Club opened. The club had a large dance hall, a separate bar and a snooker room with two well used snooker tables. The club proved a great success, and over the years, hundreds of pounds were raised by the members for charity, but by the end of the millennium, membership had fallen and the club closed in 2000. With the building of The Rise, the building was demolished to make way for the new houses.