Blackwood Miners Welfare Institute

Cadw's description

Location

At the N end of High Street approximately 240m S of the parish church.

History

Begun in 1925 and opened in 1927. The Miners Welfare Fund provided a grant of £7000 while a further £850 was raised from the contribution of miners. It was converted to an Arts Centre in 1992.

Exterior

A free-classical style institute with a symmetrical front of 3 storeys and 3 bays. The entrance range is built of reconstituted stone, and has a stepped flat roof, while behind is a gabled roughcast range with slate roof and 2 ridge ventilators under conical roofs, housing the auditorium. Iron-frame windows incorporate pivoting lights. The central rusticated entrance is recessed within a projecting segmental-vaulted canopy with panelled pilasters and foliage capitals, keyed arch, all supporting a narrow first-floor balcony with balustrade and panelled end piers. The doorway, flanked by Ionic columns on high bases, has double fielded-panel doors and tympanum with foliage in low relief. The entrance is flanked on each side by narrow superimposed windows slightly set back. In the middle storey, where the openings are framed by panelled pilasters with foliage drops, is a balcony doorway inserted within a large triple small-pane window with Tuscan pilasters. The central light has a raised tympanum framing a cartouche and cornucopia in relief, below a keystone and inscription panel. The inscription panel is further enriched by vertical end panels on guttae and beneath a head carving. Pilasters similar to the middle storey frame the smaller upper-storey tripartite window, also with Tuscan pilasters, which has a moulded sill on dentils. The stepped and shallow-gabled parapet has scrolled sides and a wide panel with 1925 in raised numerals.

The projecting outer bays have shallow angle pilasters, which are rusticated in the lower storey and have wreaths below the parapet. In the lower storey each has a tripartite window, keyed in the centre, with aprons above foundation stones. Similar first-floor windows have a corbelled sill and a string course linking the keystones. The single upper storey windows have architraves, pronounced keystones, and raised tympana with garlands in relief, beneath a stepped parapet.

The entrance range has single-bay side walls with angle pilasters similar to the front, and cornice below the parapet. In the R-hand side wall is an inserted door to the lower-storey tripartite window, and an added bay to the R, while the L side wall has a blocked tripartite lower-storey window. The rendered rear wing has flat-roofed projections, a rear lean-to, and gabled bay on the L side.

Interior

The entrance vestibule has a plaster quadripartite vault with husk decoration. It leads into the main entrance hall with stairs to the L and R and kiosk opposite the entrance. The kiosk has a large semi-circular fanlight with iron-framed glazing and coloured glass. The entrance hall is divided into 3 bays by keyed round arches with panelled soffits, and has a plaster ceiling incorporating central round panels framing the light fittings and egg-and-dart cornices. Doorways, some with pedimented wooden surrounds, have mainly double half-lit doors, and lead into the former snooker hall behind the entrance, and library and reading rooms to the sides. The stairs have iron balustrades incorporating X-shaped panels in the lower 2 storeys, further enriched by wreaths in the lower storey, but are plainer to the upper storey. They have open round newels with wooden hand rails, and panelled dado. At the top of the lower stair, on the first floor, is a keyed arch and 2 Tuscan columns. The double-height auditorium, reached on the first floor, has a simple 6-bay segmental plaster vault with wide ribs on pilasters. Walls generally have plaster panels with fluted surrounds.

Reason for designation

Listed grade II* as an especially well-preserved workmen's institute, a building type characteristic of industrial South Wales, specially important for its social-historical interest in addition to retaining strong internal and external architectural character.