Following the fire at Y Tabernacle, Mill Street, Aberystwyth at the weekend, the decision was made that it was structurally unsound and had to be demolished. It’s sad to see such a beautiful (pics) old building torn down, but one can’t help but marvel at the speed and efficiency with which they did it. This morning, as I walked to work, there was no sign of any of the heavy plant machinery that later appeared. Yet this evening, as I look out of the windows of my office, the building’s suspiciously absent – from this distance, it’s just a space in the skyline.
I’ve taken a few videos of the demolition on my mobile and uploaded them to YouTube. If you can’t see them below, you might try here.
I notice that the fire’s being treated as suspicious, and I hear that arrests have been made. I’ve also heard my fair share of conspiracy stories already about it – the building is apparently a recent aqcuisition of Merlin Homes, whose boss (rumour has it) was conveniently out of the country when this and (allegedly) another Merlin Homes building burnt down in a very short space of time… I suppose they’ll be building a block of flats on the site, now.
But hey; people will gossip.
At the risk of courting controversy, I’m kind of glad. It was the ugliest, blockiest building on Mill Street- when I lived opposite it darkened my heart a little every morning. Hopefully they’ll replace it with something clean and new, and not some crumbling pile that was last cleaned/painted in 1875.
p.s. me getting into aber that night was just a coincidence, no matter how much I love fire.
Hi sady to see Y Tabernacl go. It was a building of national inportance. Did they manage to save the Mario Ruttelli (who also designed Aber war memorial) and has that been kept. It does seem mighty swift to me how it has gone from a fire damaged building to being able to demolish. At least the facade should and could have been kept.
I guess we will have another bland and boring brick construction on the site.
The Mario Rutelli is the sculpture in the chapel yard.
The sculpture was still there during the demolition, but was removed separately, so it’s probably being stored somewhere. It’d be nice if they restore it to the site later, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.