DisgrifiadOpened officially on 7 July 1934 by the President of the South Wales Miners' Federation, Jim Griffiths, Ystradgynlais Miners' Welfare Hall and Insitute had been constructed using a grant from the Miners' Welfare Fund. It provided a public hall and other features typical of workmen's halls and institutes in the South Wales Valleys in this period. Though today operated as a cinema, the history of its role as a community cinema is a difficult one. The first cinema opened in the main hall on 29 March 1937 but never gained popular appeal since most local residents still attended the Astoria Cinema that had opened at the beginning of the decade. Closed in 1938, a cinema at the Welfare Hall did not reopen again until some years after the Second World War.
Daryl Leeworthy, RCAHMW, 28 September 2011
Source: Herald of Wales, 14 July 1934.