A permanent exhibition is to be launched next week at Rhydypennau Hall to celebrate its rich history.
The permanent exhibition will launch on Friday, 4 April at 7pm.
The curator of the exhibition, Gordon Jones explains how it all came about.
He said: “The late Meinir Lowry had left a box of her father’s documents to be included in the hall’s archives kept in Ceredigion Archives, and I was thrilled when I found a series of small Box Brownie pictures showing the demolition of the old hall and the building of the current one.
“A clipping from the Cambrian News and another newspaper were a great help in dating the action to 1952, and that volunteers, including a retired British ambassador to Bolivia, Dr T. Ifor Rees, had also rolled up his sleeves and pitched in.”
No living Bow Street residents remembered seeing these fascinating images kept safely by Tomi John Hughes, who served as a committee member for 67 years.
In 2017, his daughter Meinir Lowry had given a talk about how her grandfather, Tom Hughes, and a few others had acquired an enormous shed in Pembroke Dock in 1920, dismantled it and transported it on a freight train to Aberystwyth, where it was carried by horse-drawn carts to its current location and re-built as Bow Street’s village hall.
So many local people were fascinated by the story that an appeal for old photos and documents was launched in May 2024 and numerous interesting mementoes of the past life of the area came to light.
Amongst them was a large photo owned by local poet and farmer, Vernon Jones, showing an unusual hunting party, comprised of local children, workers and Gogerddan gentry facing the camera in about 1912 in the front garden of his family home.
Vernon had such vivid stories to tell about many of those characters that he was both recorded on video, and a separate exhibition was created so that others could enjoy learning about Tom MacDonald, Lady Marjorie Pryse, Ifor Davies and Morris Nicholas and other local characters.
By researching the Rhydypennau Hall archive, Professor Hywel Roberts, took on the challenge of scripting and narrating on video a short history of the hall from 1920 to the present in Welsh and in English, both of which can be viewed on the night, as well as on bilingual exhibition boards.
Admission and light refreshments will be free, and the exhibition boards can be viewed at the Hall for a few months. QR codes on the boards will enable those unable to attend to experience the videos. It is hoped that future exhibitions will include a celebration of the 150th anniversary of Rhydypennau School in 2026.