The Mural - detail, top left
Neuadd y Ddraig Goch. The new hall is to be seen clearly with the mottos of Merched y Wawr, W.I. and the drama/theatre masks. Drama productions were regularly held in the old hall and pantomimes were held annually during the 1940s and 1950s under the direction of William Davies (Wil Pen-lôn) who had been a professional singer in Covent Garden. The hall was the local social and cultural centre.
The various cups won by Bargod Teifi Male Voice Choir under its conductor, Albert Evans, in the middle of the last century can be seen in front of the hall. One of the main medals won by the choir can be seen on the side wall of the Red Lion. Bargod Teifi Male Voice Choir was formed towards the end of the 19th century and the first major success was winning the Male Voice Choir Competition at the Carmarthen National Eisteddfod in 1911. A new mixed choir was formed in 1974 and they competed and held concerts until 1999.
Alwyn Davies (Alwyn Dan Banc) who has served the hall and the community throughout his life stands in front of the hall. Mrs Brynmor Williams (Margaret Evans, Danwarin), an actress and a producer of local plays and pageants who was prominent with the W.I. and represented the district as a councillor for many years is to the left of the hall.
Meirion Jones emphasises that the mural is in the form of a number of circles and there is another one of these in the upper left side of the mural.
In the upper left hand corner you can see Pantyrefail, Cwmhiraeth, the farmhouse where Griffith Jones, Llanddowror (1683-1761) was born. There’s a portrait of this important person in front of his home. He established the Circulating Schools which taught illiterate Welsh people to read the Welsh Bible. To the left of Griffith Jones stands Pen-rhiw Chapel which was moved to the National Museum at St Fagans, Cardiff in 1952. It was established as a meeting house by the Unitarians in 1777 – the year of the three pickaxes – and here also under the yew tree near the chapel the early Union members would meet and they are the men holding the pickaxes. In front of Pen-rhiw Chapel the little boy refuses to doff his cap to the gentry denoting how equality developed in society in coming years. Daniel Jones, the author of Hanes Plwyfi Llangeler a Phenboyr (the history of Llangeler and Pen-boyr parishes until 1900) was buried in Pen-rhiw cemetery.
The mother church, Sant Llawddog Church, Pen-boyr, and parish church, is on the horizon at the top of the mural and it completes this circle symmetrically. To the left of Penboyr Church is the old Vale of Bargod Rechabites Band in their uniform in 1909. There were bands in the village until Albert Evans’s time in the 1950s.
The long and low level building in the mural besides Pen-rhiw Chapel can be found at the roadside on the way to Cwm-pen-graig. Here at Yr Ogof was the earliest record of wool spinning and working hand looms before machines were installed in the mills. Lower down in the mural girls in their Welsh costumes can be seen spinning wool.
Read more about the mural: Murlun | Detail 1 | Detail 2 | Detail 3 | Detail 4