DEVELOPMENT
application forms for compensation. Following the Clerk’s observations, the four villagers left the chamber to sign application forms for compensation. Coun. Hopkin Lewis told members: “I feel in the long run, the villagers will realise we have done them a service by making the closing orders.” Coun. W.H. Bennett said the people would be given better opportunities and a better outlook when they moved into their new homes. We can say Pantywaun is a village that has died. It is not a village that lends itself to development. When the people move, the children will be much better off.” Coun. W.J. Payne told members he could remember Pantywaun as a village without electric light, water, telephones, or a railway station. “Now they have all these things, but the houses have deteriorated. I blame some of the owners for this,” he said. “I am sorry they have to move, but when they do, they will realise the benefits of the surroundings we have to offer them.”
4 August 1962
Only The Public House Will Be Left In Pantywaun The Royal Arms Hotel, built in the last century to serve the isolated village of Pantywaun, is likely to be a public house without customers when the rest of the village is demolished by Gelligaer Urban Council. The hotel, owned by the Rhymney Brewery Company, is the only building in the village that has not been served with a demolition order. When the 80 residents move from the village, trade at the pub will collapse and the building will be forced with closure. Already, the hotel is losing custom and stocks of beer have been cut down. The licensee, Mrs. Elsie Evans, who lives at the hotel with her husband, Mr. John Thomas Evans, told an Express reporter: “Our customers have drifted away and business has been on the slack side for weeks. During the past month, we have sold hardly any beer. Two of three men call occasionally for a few bottles, but that is all. On Saturday night, we had two customers, and from now on things well get worse,” she commented. Mrs. Evans, who is the mother of six sons, four of them schoolboys, said they had no plans for the future if the pub is closed. “I have been to the Council and they asked me to apply in writing for a house. But I have heard nothing yet,” she added. A spokesman for the Brewery said on Thursday: “We would like to keep the pub alive, but there is no future for it. We have made no definite plans as yet, but if the other houses are demolished, there is no way of keeping it alive. It’s a pity but the building is in reasonably good condition, but the drainage facilities there are not adequate,” he added. The spokesman stated that there was no bulk stock of beer at the hotel because trade had become generally poor. He said the licensee normally called at the brewery with a van when supplies were low. Demolition orders in respect of the 21 houses in the village were made by Gelligaer Urban Council on May 22.