A building in Tremadog is being given a new lease of life thanks to a committee in the area.

Local historian Martin Pritchard is part of that committee, and hopes the public will support their aim to see the building survive.

As part of the committee’s work, the history of the building has been extensively researched.

Martin said: “The building now named the Tremadog Memorial Institute was probably built between 1805 and 1810,” he said, “on land reclaimed by William Alexander Madocks MP who established the small town of Tremadog at the beginning of the 19th century by embanking the estuary of the Afon Glaslyn.

“The town forms an interesting example of early 19th century planning: and it remains almost in its original state.

“The institute was purchased initially from the Tremadoc estates in 1921.

“In 1928 it was then purchased for £330 as a war memorial for those who died in the First World War.

“It contained a shop, office, parlour, kitchen, scullery, five bedrooms and a small stable in the yard.

“Between the two wars two village boys died in the North West Frontier fighting against the hill tribesmen.

“One other boy died or disappeared during the Spanish civil war. Another boy died in Egypt during the Second World War.

“There was also the printing office, warehouse with small attic, rent £5 with a door on to the main square.”

According to the research, the building was, until the 1920s, partially used as a dwelling with the ground floor occupying the chemist shop and printing workshop.

“These two establishments were run from 1839 by Robert Isaac Jones (Alltud Eifion, 1815-1905, poet and editor who earned a living as the chemist in the Cambrian Pill depot established in 1838,” said Martin.

“But he also did valuable work as a printer for the Madoc Printing office. And he made a collection of local antiquities called Y Gestiana in 1892, which was reprinted in 1975 for the National Eisteddfod Bro Dwyfor in Cricieth.

“He also produced and published Y Brython, a literary and antiquarian journal which was launched in 1858 as a weekly newspaper.

“It became a quarterly journal until its demise in 1863.

“It’s editor was Daniel Sihram Evans (1818-1903) who became professor of Welsh at the University College of Wales Aberystwyth re-edited most of the Welsh prose classics produced during that period.

“Evans was a lexicographer and he started a dictionary of the Welsh language that was to be comparable to the Oxford English dictionary.”

The Madoc printers occupied the site until 1920s when they moved to Porthmadog and the building was used for a period after the Second World War as a fruit shop by an ex-serviceman.

The building has also been used as a snooker hall, concert hall (the upstairs area was almost large enough to seat most of the village population), whist drive hall, community centre and as a public meeting hall public hearings and civic and planning appeals.

The new site can be seen on tremadog-memorial-institute.org

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