Pontardawe Arts Centre

The first of Pontardawe’s three cinemas to close was the Pavilion in Church Street. It was certainly closed in the early 1950s. Unusually for the Swansea Valley, the Public Hall was a facility that was mainly supported by voluntary subscriptions (6d a week) deducted from the wages of workers at the nearby tin plate works and not by coal miners or the the NUM.It was the closure of the tin plate works that led to Pontardawe becoming an unemployment black spot and the Public Hall to suffer severe financial difficulties.