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Tyddyn Street Church in Mold is given £350,000 facelift

AN ICONIC building that was the scene of a bloody massacre 140 years ago has been given a £350,000 facelift.

The historic Tyddyn Street Church in Mold has been transformed in a renovation that has turned it into a community and arts centre as well as a place of worship.

It was built in the early 1860s as the Free Church, an independent Congregationalist church, and it was the scene of four deaths in the Mold Riots in 1869, when there was a confrontation between local miners and soldiers of the King’s Own Chester Regiment.

A crowd of more than 1,000 were protesting at the jailing of seven miners who had attacked the manager of a mine in Leeswood and when they began to throw stones the soldiers were ordered to open fire.

Four people were killed, one of them dying in the churchyard and, according to Mervyn Phillips, the former chief executive of Clwyd County Council, who has overseen the redevelopment of the building, the church steps still bear the marks of the bullets.

But he and the Rev Brian Acty hope the transformation will bring people back to the church for more peaceful reasons as a centre for community activities and the arts.

The work has been carried out with funds from the sale of surplus property, individual fundraising and the support of a number of important grant funding organisations, including rural regeneration agency Cadwyn Clwyd which has provided £14,823 from the Flintshire Key Fund which aims to help bring new life to the community buildings of rural Flintshire.

The money, which has paid for the lift to the new mezzanine floor, has come from the Rural Development Fund for Wales 2007-2013, which is funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and the Welsh Government.

Mr Phillips said: “Work started in January and the project has gone very well with the building designed for use both as a place of worship and for community use by the architect, Robin Wolley.

“We want it to be a real hub for the community and it has been fitted with a first floor gallery that overlooks the main part of the building and which is accessed by a fine oak staircase and the lift.

“The renovation gives us good disabled access, a new kitchen and meeting rooms and it will provide us with a chapel arts centre with a capacity of 120 which is open for practice and performance by community groups and for use as a small conference centre.

“We also hope to be able to mount an exhibition including the events around the church during in the Mold industrial protests when the militia opened fire on the crowd who had turned out to support the local miners.”

The Tyddyn Street Church is keen to hear from local organisations which would like to make use of its facilities and those interested can call church secretary Margaret Jones 01352 757049.

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