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ABERTILLERY & DISTRICT MUSEUM SOCIETY

The People's Museum
Read our monthly News Letters
[May 2012]





 

 

 

THE METROPOLE BUILDING
MARKET STREET
ABERTILLERY
NP13 1AH
Phone & Fax 01495 211140
Curator Mr. Don Bearcroft

Abertillery& District  Museum  Committee 2011



 






Bronze Age Palstave (axe) found on the mountainside at Cwmtillery by Cll Bill Deasy 30th July 1956
The Abertillery & District Museum Society has been in existence since 1964. It collects, catalogues and interprets archaeological and social history material relating to the communities of the Ebbw Fach valley, namely Abertillery, Cwmtillery, Blaenau Gwent, Six Bells, Aberbeeg, Brynithel, Llanhilleth and Swffryd.
The museum is an independent museum run entirely by volunteers, and has provisional registration with the Council of Museums in Wales.
The collection is displayed in the old Market Hall of the Metropole Building, Market St Abertillery

Farming tools a reminder of the pre-industrial age
The Society's collection ranges from prehistoric and Roman material to artefacts made and collected during the miner's strike of 1984/5, and include objects, photographs, drawings, models, paintings, geological specimens and items of costume. More recent material covers the impact of the World Wars on civilian life and the role played by local people in the services and war time industries, the Six Bells mining disasterof 1960, the miner's strike of 1984 and the final demise of the coal industry.


A room set aside as a miner's kitchen filled with gadgets of a bygone age. Other exhibits contain a laundry area, school, railway and Webbs Brewery at Aberbeeg


Blaenau Gwent Women's Support Group Banner
made during the 1984/5 Miners Strike



Church, Nonconformist, Friendly Societies and other organisations are represented in the displays

A Spinning demonstration by ladies in National Dress during a St David's Day Coffee Morning at the museum


Home Guard, Women's Voluntary Service, Fire Service
and Civil Defence (A R P) display.



Coffee morning at the museum.

Visiting the museum is a nostalgic experience, reminding many of a not too distant past. There is however plenty to intrigue our younger visitor who can enjoy our quiz sheets or in drawing the exhibits. The period covered by the exhibits fit in well with the National Curriculum. There is a handling collection which allows for tactile experience by the children.