The Talbot Institute

Cadw's description

Location

The building is set in a terrace of C19 buildings, approximately 100m from the junction of Princes Road with Commercial Road.

History

Built in 1911 as a working man's institute at the cost of £2,000 presented by Miss Talbot of Margam. It was in 3 sections, one for games containing two billiard tables, one for newspaper reading, and the third a library with 4000 volumes, and including an area for magazines.

Exterior

Built of rock-faced squared rubble with stone dressings, slate roof. Meeting hall with service rooms to the rear. Gabled front elevation to the street; central doorway, the quoins with arris staff rolls and capital band from which springs a voussoired arch with a moulded hood. Later doors inserted under a cambered tympanum. One paned timber window each side, also quoined and with a label drip mould slightly cambered at the centre. A similar paned window above the door and a keyed oculus in the gable head. Cusped timber bargeboards with iron finial. The side walls are pebbledashed, with five brick-dressed windows and end doors each side, the windows 4-paned with top hung vents.

Interior

The interior of the hall is of 6 bays, with open trusses and boarded ceiling.

Reason for designation

Included as a substantially unaltered multi-purpose social and educational building for working men and miners in the industrial areas of S Wales, unusual in that it was paid for by a major landowning family rather than by the workers themselves.