Carmarthenshire Heritage Regeneration Trust has received funding to undertake a feasibility study for options on the sustainable use of the Gatehouse in Carmarthen.
The Gatehouse has architectural significance as a grade II* listed building and the oldest surviving building on the site. It also has considerable historic association with the Rebecca rioters who stormed the workhouse in 1843. The rioters were cut down by dragoons – reportedly the last cavalry charge on British soil.
The Carmarthenshire Heritage Regeneration Trust, a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee, has as one of its key objectives the purchasing, restoration and finding of new uses for redundant historic buildings. The organisation recently successfully restored and opened to the public Llanelly House a grade I listed building in the heart of Llanelli.
This application is seen as the first step in the process for the CHRT to purchase and regenerate the property for a wider community, cultural and heritage benefit whilst conserving a building of historic, architectural and cultural significance which is currently redundant and in danger of dereliction.
Robert Pugh, CHRT Trustee, said: “We at CHRT are very enthusiastic about the preservation of the gatehouse which we see as both historically and architecturally important and a survivor of the pre-Rebecca period. The Rebecca Riots are a major folk memory in Carmarthenshire and the gatehouse is of central importance in that story. Add to this the last British Cavalry charge in Britain to relieve it from the rioters make this of much wider interest than many historic buildings.”
RDP Sir Gâr’s Innovative Communities, part of the Axis 4 Innovative Hubs scheme has funded the feasibility study.
Innovative Communities supports the trialling of new ideas that could benefit community life and is funded through the Rural Development Plan for Wales 2007-2013 which is funded by Welsh Government and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.
If you would like further details on RDP Sir Gâr grants and support, please call 01267 242366 or visit wwec.org.uk
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