Editor

I would be obliged if you would publish some comments I would like to make about the recent demolition of the Old Candle Works (Y Ffatws) by Ceredigion County Council in the hope that they might resonate with some of your readers.

Though I was aware, through your journal, that CCC intended to carry out this act of vandalism in June last year, I had not spotted the white notice on the door or the indication that “prior approval was not needed for demolition”. However, the frequency of my visits downtown have been reduced during the pandemic.

The Ffatws was the last building that indicated one former use of this area. It used to include a livestock market, slaughterhouse, tannery and candle works. The sale, slaughter and rendering of livestock in one area might have improved their welfare by reducing the distance they had to travel at the end of their lives.Some might even have travelled in on the Manchester and Milford Railway which ran alongside.Park Avenue (or Boulevard Saint Brieuc if you know how to pronounce it) used to be called Smithfield and terminated where the railway crossed it.

The market was opened in 1874.The slaughterhouse was closed in 1964 as the borough council (a predecessor of CCC) thought it was too expensive to bring it up to the standards that were then being required.

The Ffatws was a final reminder of the time before gas or electric lighting when the poorer people lit their homes by burning tallow candles. If you look at the OS map for 1900, you will see the gasworks on the site of what is now Tesco and M&S. The 12 houses in nearby Glynd?r Road were not built until the 1930s.They were knocked down about 10 years ago to accommodate CCC’s plans for the area. Some of your more astute readers may note a recurring theme.

I have looked on the website of the Royal Commission for Ancient Monuments for any plans or photographs of the Ffatws but can find none. I wonder if CCC informed them, or indeed St Fagan’s Museum of old buildings, before the demolition.

All CCC offices are closed until further notice. The Ffatws might have made a good temporary office for the head of planning.There is a greater density of planning applications in Aberystwyth than anywhere else in the county.

David Kirby Cae Melyn Aberystwyth

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