Alisia Wygant is doing a project on the old King's Hall building on the town's seafront. She wrote in with this query:
"I am a student at UW Aberystwyth, doing a project on the decision to tear down the King's Hall, and have found this site to be very useful for getting a feeling for people's memories of the place. I am curious how, why, and when the site was originally created. Any information you could share about this would be greatly appreciated!"
Tim Barnett from Aberystwyth suggests the history pages of a local website:
"Take a look at www.thecarvery.net - the 'History' section gives a pretty good in depth history of the site. he 'Pictures' section has some fantastic images of The Waterloo Hydro Hotel and the old Kings Hall."
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Shortly after Alisia posted her plea on the site, we received this response from Charlie Downes from Aberystwyth:
"In reply to the request for information relating to the Kings Hall, I can confirm that the land was previously occupied by The Hydro-Waterloo Hotel. This burnt down in 1919 and was replaced by The Kings Hall.
During the demolition of the King's Hall, I took various photographs and I would be willing to loan them to anybody doing research into this."
We've added Charlie's photos to the site...
Ian Pegler got in touch with some more information about the final days of the King's Hall:
"I was involved in the last rock concert at the King's Hall. It featured a number of local bands and was called "Sonic Attack" on the posters. The bands included Gomery Snake, Wok, The Elephant Men and The Diamond Backed Rattlesnakes. It was freezing cold and very loud. The P.A. system was 6Kwatts.
Despite the King's Hall being declared "unsafe" the demolition men had a hard time pulling the building down. There were iron girders and some sort of mesh, almost like chicken-wire, inside the blocks. Every time the demolition-ball hit the wall, the blow was being absorbed by the mesh."
Read more about the King's Hall...Ask a Local Aberystwyth Index...
your comments
Rick Lomas from Serre Chevalier, France
I was trying to find Mike Mullins who played Synth (A Roland SH101 to be exact) with The Elephant Men. I played The Kings Hall in about 1982 with a band called Mongoose, which was myself on bass, Bim (James Barrow) on vocals, Dorrien Davies on Guitar and Bruce Gribbon on drums. We didn't do many gigs with that band. At the time I was in Aberystwyth (1980-1983) the main live music pub was The Angel, where I had a residency every Thursday with my more 'pub rock' style band, "Tony Lamb's Boogie Box". It is sad that the Kings Hall has gone, but to be honest, it was hard to fill such a big venue.
Mon Sep 28 10:19:17 2009
min titman
Margret Thatcher had a Welsh Conservative conferencc here before she was Prime Minister. They put the wrong coloured flowers in the hall and had to change just before conference. I remember her walking along the prom with just two men in suits with her. I was sitting on the prom just by the side of the bandstand, never thinking this lady would be Prime Minister of the UK. The hall was good enough then - shows it should have been preserved for future generations. A truly great place.
Thu Mar 16 15:44:05 2006
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Can you help an Aber student find information about the history of the King's Hall site?
