Shangri La

Cadw's description

Location

Towards W of the community, on a corner site with Hill Road, set in a sloping garden.

History

Built late 1930s in Streamline Art-Deco style for Maisie Cam (nee Withers) and Francis Cam, cinema manager. Maisie and Francis were the daughter and son-in-law of Alfred Withers, who with his brother Albert Jackson-Withers had relocated from London to South Wales to manage a chain of cinemas. The Withers brothers’ business began with cinemas in Merthyr Tydfil and Bargoed in 1908 and by its peak in the 1950s the family owned around fifty cinemas across South Wales and Southeast England. Francis Cam was an electrician at the New Hall cinema in Bargoed and played a prominent role in managing the Withers’ cinema empire after marrying into the family. By the 1960s the Withers brothers had become business partners of Julian Hodge, who sold the cinema chain to the Rank Organisation following their deaths. Amongst the cinemas owned by the Withers family was the Carlton Cinema in Swansea (qv 11602).

Exterior

Streamline moderne detached house. Of brick, mostly rendered; exposed brick plinth; flat roof with deeply overhanging eaves to front, one stack to left. Double fronted though not symmetrical. Three main bays: to left a semi-circular 2-storeyed bay with metal-framed windows extending right across the curve on each floor; to right the bay is straight at centre and front and curved to side; between the two bays is a recessed asymmetrically patterned part-glazed front door flanked by windows, the metal-railed balcony to landing window above forming a porch hood. To left a single storey garage conversion with flat roof forms another first floor balcony with swimming pool style ladder to main flat roof. Flat roofed rear kitchen block was squared off by addition of a first-floor bathroom extension in 2016.

Interior

Interior retains original plan except for loss of a partition to enlarge the kitchen, with rooms leading off central hall and staircase with ramped balusters to rear; tall arched window on stairway with stained glass of a sunburst over the sea, said to have been added in the 1950s. Original woodblock floors are preserved beneath modern tiles. Garage has been converted into a sunroom with the insertion of a large west facing window and a door for internal access to the lounge.

Reason for designation

Included for special architectural interest as a rare example of an Art-deco suburban house in the South Wales Valleys. Historical association with the Withers family of cinema proprietors.