'Our North Wales school was in danger of being lost forever - so we bought it'
When the old school was closed down in 2019, the explanation given was a shortage of English-speaking pupils. If that was the case, Ysgol Pontfadog had achieved its aim, being one of the first of Lloyd George’s “new” schools where Welsh children were encouraged to speak their mother tongue.
In reality, the local community was aghast: campaigners insisted that, 111 years after the school opened, most families in the Ceiriog Valley now spoke English, not just Welsh. More than 1,300 objections were made against the closure – and against the plan to send pupils to dual-language Ysgol Cynddelw two miles away.
After the school bell rang for the final time, locals demanded the building be retained for community use via an asset transfer or lease. Wrexham Council had other ideas – it wanted to sell the site for housing. But for several “quirks of fate” this might have been what happened.
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Instead, four years later, a quartet of Pontfadog residents put their hands in their pockets and bought the “model” school for their community. Despite a major setback, following last year’s snap General Election, ambitious plans to transform the building remain in hand. As well as a planned forest school and café, tourism bodies see its as a potential visitor hub capitalising on the valley’s “undiscovered” attractions.
“There was room on the site to fit 20 houses,” sighed Kirsty Williams, a Pontfadog mum whose four children went to the school. “With planning for development, it could have sold for £1m. But the council unsuccessfully tried to dispose of it for four years. All the valley’s sewage plants are antiquated, having been built in the 1950s, and they can’t separate out grey water from rainwater. So developers were reluctant.”
Another reason was Wales’ phosphate regulations, which effectively put a two-year block on new developments. Faced with a growing planning backlog, Wrexham Council eventually offered it for auction. Join the North Wales Live Whatsapp community now
As well as Kirsty, a beekeeper who keeps and breeds native Welsh Black bees, three other local women were behind the Pontfadog bid – Edith Jones, Isabelle Waine and Alma Pierson. Two had direct links to the school and all wanted it retained at the heart of the community. Having constituted a Community Interest Company (CIC), they knew the odds were stacked against them.
In March 2023, the school was offered at an online SDL property auction. Kirsty, the main shareholder, was hoping for a bargain price and she got one. “The auction was scheduled to run all day as there were 800 lots,” she said.
“The running order was determined by the level of interest, and we were at number five! So there was a lot of interest in the school, which was a bit worrying. We knew there were two very good potential bidders in the running – a local farmer and a special needs school in Wrexham – but neither turned up on the day.
“The lot before ours frustrated the auctioneer as someone kept upping the price each time he was about to bring down the hammer. As he was already behind schedule, and had 800 lots to get through, I think he quickly sailed through our lot – we got a good price!”
The aim all along was to create a thriving community hub that, with grant support, could stand on its own feet. The Architectural Heritage Fund allocated £7,000 for a feasibility study and this led to a £1.5m bid for Levelling Up funding via the UK government’s Community Ownership Fund.
Based on public feedback, plans for the site included a forest school, pre-school nursery, holiday club and outdoor birthday parties. Other ideas ranged from a museum, to treatment rooms, wedding venue and day care for the elderly. Outside, a sensory garden was planned along with a sports field, Pontfadog having no other green space for ball games.
The quartet thought they had the money in the bag. But days before funding was agreed, then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sprung a surprise election for July last year. At a sweep, all bets were off the table.
While the incoming administration made all the right noises, in the wake of the autumn Budget is became clear the money was no longer available. The Pontfadog four had to tear up their plans and start again.
The stakes were high: as the £1.5m funding bid had included repayment of the quartet’s initial investment, they’d been left exposed. Now they are digging in for the long haul, hoping to recoup some their money if the school project manages to return a profit.
However this was never a deal-breaker - the four backers’ main goal was always to return the school to the community. “Despite what happened, we never even considered dropping the scheme,” said Kirsty. “But yes of course, it’s made things harder.”
A new set of grants is being applied for, which means the quartet must launch more consultations to find out what residents want from the facility. A survey is now live and you can find it here.
It includes many previous ideas and some new ones too. As well as a community café and kitchen facilities, suggestions include a heritage trail, art gallery, event space and pop-up banking. A men’s shed space is proposed, along with communal veg growing and a community garden. EV car and cycle charging is a possibility. In a doffed cap to the building’s past, education could remain part of its remit via lifelong learning, forest school and home schooling. There are many other ideas too.
All of which would be held in and around a building that positively gleams with Edwardian endeavour. Parquet mahogany flooring has been worn by generations of pupils but it remains intact. Inside, glazed mustard and forest green Ruabon bricks line the walls to pupils’ head height.
Internal doors are original and a rare feature is a concertina classroom divider. Small wonder heritage body Cadw has advised the CIC to submit the school for listing once repairs and renovations are completed.
The school’s existence owes much to friends in high places. Pushing it through was Pontfadog resident Sir Alfred Davies, a good friend of Lloyd George. As Prime Minister, he appointed Sir Alfred to head up the Welsh Education Department and Pontfadog was near the top of the list for a new generation of “model” schools.
On January 9, 1912, school inspector Owen Morgan Edwards visited the then four-year-old facility. He reported the school as having “beautiful up-to-date buildings”, with two “airy and spacious” classrooms. Mr Edwards concluded: “It is clear that with the model buildings and newer methods, this school can take its place with the best country school of the district.”
Structurally, it’s still “sound as a pound”, said Kirsty. But more than the building’s architecture, it is the community’s shared connection with school life that’s driving its reimagining. “Our own four children went to the school," she added. "We loved its educational ethos and its special history, and so many others did too." Sign up for the North Wales Live newsletter sent twice daily to your inbox
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