Vaynor Quarries – The Melting Pot – Merthyr Tydfil's History and Culture

Welsh Cakes

by Barrie Jones

The Welsh cake is part of our national fabric, who among us has not proudly presented a cake to our non-Welsh friends as if it was our national emblem. When living in England, on or near every Saint David’s day, a batch of cakes would be taken into work to share with our work colleagues. Two of our granddaughters living in England, and who call themselves Wenglish, always take some into school for their teachers.

Baked on a bakestone/griddle, the ‘stone’ can form part of family tradition and be handed down from generation to generation. Early on in our marriage, my father who was the maintenance electrician at Vaynor Quarries, had the works blacksmith make us our bakestone. Made of cast iron, 25cm in diameter and 1cm thick, it weighs a hefty four kilos, which needs careful handling whether hot or cold. The ‘stone/maen’ has served us well for over fifty years and was used for this Saint David’s day (2025).

The following recipe for Welsh cakes is from an old dog-eared Be-Ro recipe book; hence the measures are imperial not metric. Be-Ro, formally Bells Royal, introduced their recipe books in 1923 to try and encourage the use of self-raising flour as opposed to plain flour; “Be-Ro cuts out oven doubt” The current Be-Ro book is in its 41^st edition, ours is the 34^th. Strangely, the recipe is titled Welsh Girdle Cakes, girdle being a North of England word for griddle.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Eight ounces of self-raising flour
½ teaspoon of salt (optional)
Four ounces of margarine or butter
Two ounces of caster sugar
Two ounces of currents or sultanas
One egg (beaten)
Two tablespoons of milk

Stages:

Mix flour, salt in a basin, and rub in margarine or butter.
Add sugar and currents or sultanas.
Mix to a fairly stiff dough with egg and milk.
Roll out thinly on a floured surface, cut into rounds with a two or three-inch cutter.
Bake on a moderately hot, well-greased griddle for three minutes each side.

Each serving provides 357 Kcal, 5g protein, 46g carbohydrates (of which 18g sugars), 16.5g fat (of which 10g saturates), 1.5g fibre and 0.7g salt.

The above recipe will make approximately twenty-two cakes using a two-inch cutter, while a larger cutter, three-inch, will make about ten cakes.

Saturday Football in our Local Community

by Brian Jones

Allan “Salty” Jones has recently published the centenary story (1913 -2013) of football played by a myriad of local teams. His account draws on a vast number of photographs of boys and men who set out to enjoy Saturday football on pitches of variable quality from the north to the south of the Merthyr Borough. Their faces shine out of the black/white and coloured prints spanning a number of generations the vast majority of whom are sadly not still with us. Nevertheless their spirit epitomises their love for the game, and perhaps more importantly, their camaraderie bound together by work, community, church or public house.

The names of the clubs who played in the MERTHYR LEAGUE ring out through the ages. Merthyr Trams, Aberfan Thursdays, Bethania Chapel, Court Rangers, Gellifaelog Youth Club, Mountain Hare, Hoovers, Castle Rangers, Miners Hall, Great Escape and Vaynor Quarries. The list is endless. A review of the history of local football mirrored the social and industrial changes spanning the 100 years. Gone are the teams representing local employers such as Guest Keen, Lines, B.S.A , Teddington Controls, Kayser Bondor, Welsh Products to name but a few.

Of the hundreds of teams who joined then left the League was S.W.E.B. who played post World War II into the early 1950s. The South Wales Electricity Board team of young men who served in the Army, Navy or Royal Air Force and went to work in an industry which blossomed with the surge in demand for an alternative power source. The sprint was on to convert homes from coal gas to electricity. Mains cables had to be laid in streets, Electricity meters installed and wiring to be linked to light switches and power points. Who can recall the demand for one shilling coins for the electricity slot meters to ensure the lights stayed on during dark winter nights!

The S.W.E.B team of 1954/55 played their home games in Heolgerrig and perhaps there are readers who are the grandchildren and great- grandchildren of those in the photograph. Were they players of great skill, who knows, but we can be assured that on their Monday stint in their work base at the Traction Yard in Penydarren they would certainly be enthusing about the win, draw or loss of the previous Saturday game

P.S. The author is the eight year old in the photograph

Merthyr’s Lost Landmarks: The Castle Cinema

Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

By the late 1920’s, with the burgeoning popularity of ‘moving pictures’, Merthyr already had a number of purposely built cinemas: the Electric and the Palace in town, the Cosy in Penydarren, the Victoria in Dowlais and the Picture Palace in Troedyrhiw. Everything changed in 1927, however, when ‘The Jazz Singer’ was released. This was the first ‘talking picture’, and cinema was revolutionised.

Unfortunately, none of the cinemas in Merthyr had the technical apparatus to show ‘talkies’, so it was decided that a new purpose built cinema was to be erected. Merthyr Cinemas Ltd, a company which had been set up in 1916 by Henry Seymour Berry to oversee the growing number of cinemas in the town, undertook the planning for the enterprise, and the new cinema was built on the site of the old Castle Hotel. It was designed by the architect O.P. Bevan with the building work carried out by a local contractor – Mr George Warlow using stone supplied by Vaynor Quarries. The overall cost of the building was £300,000.

The Castle Cinema was opened on 11 February 1929 by the mayor, Alderman David Parry at a grand ceremony. The following description of the building appeared in the Merthyr Express on 16 February 1929:

“The Castle Cinema is capable of seating 1,700 people, and ranks among the most commodious and luxuriously fitted film theatres in the Provinces. The main entrance is on Castle Street, so that patrons are spared the discomfort of congested traffic conditions in High Street. The foyer, approached through three pairs of double doors is of an irregular shape, spacious and is beautifully decorated. Leading from the marble foyer are staircases to the mezzanine floor and the gallery, and double doors opening to the ground floor, where there is an excellent fall towards the stage and screen. The walls are beautifully decorated by murals paintings of singular beauty and charm. Large landscape panels, designed by Mr. J. Jones, a local artist, for the decorators (Messrs. W.R. Lewis and son, Merthyr) show stately castles and medieval settings, and across the ceiling is colour washed a brilliant sky illuminated from two light ray domes. An electrically controlled passenger lift carries patrons to the balcony, and gallery floors. The hall is built of fire resisting materials, and the various inlets are supplemented by numerous emergency exits. The Cinema is adapted also for concerts, and a dance or tea-room is provided on the Mezzanine floor, from where runs a small circle, with seats for fifty persons.

One of the famous Christie unit organs has been installed. It combines the musical features of the finest Cathedral pipe-organ, with the manifold voices of a symphony orchestra. no fewer than one hundred miles of electric wire is used in the construction of the mechanism, while 20,000 contacts , all of sterling silver and soldered joints, are contained in the console and action machines, and there are a thousand pipes. The three manual console is provided with 150 stop keys and a remarkable simulation of the human voice is produced by means of the vox human. The organist is Mr Gwilym Jones L.R.A.M., will also direct the Castle Cinema orchestra, which will be under the leadership of Mr Ronald Jones, from the London Symphony Orchestra.”

The Christie Organ in the 1940’s with long-time organist Gene Lynn. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

In 1932, the cinema was bought by Associated British Cinemas and renamed the ABC Castle Super Cinema. In 1954, the organ, which had been falling into disrepair for many years was removed, and in 1972 the cinema was bought by the Star Group who decided to alter the cinema – converting the stalls into a bingo hall, and converting the balcony into two small ‘studios’.

From 1977 the cinema passed into the ownership of several independent operators, and in 1998, the bingo hall closed and a new 300 seat cinema was opened in its place the following year. The cinema closed in 2003 and soon fell into such a state of disrepair, that despite several failed ventures (a skating rink and a pub), the building was demolished in 2011.