Ship St to Glamorgan St

Watergate and Ship Street

Back on the town side of the bridge we are in Watergate, once the western entrance to the town. Brass studs in the road outside the Working Men’s Club mark the location of the original Water Gate entrance through the town wall.  There were several pubs within a few yards of this spot.  The Boar’s Head is still clear. Next door to the glass gallery was the Crown Inn.  On the Working Men’s Club site stood the Fountain Inn,  along Market Street was the Queen’s Head Hotel and the Black Lion Inn (on Castle Street but demolished to make way for the inner ring road).  At the top of Ship Street was the Old Six Bells and around the corner from there, on Wheat Street, the Sun Inn, the Wheat Sheaf Inn (now the Rorke’s Drift) and  behind that the Castle Brewery Pub.

Walking up Ship Street we have the ultimate mix of architectural history.  On the right, the houses are mostly 17th century - some of the oldest in the town - but with updated frontages.  On the left, the brick and glass of the former library opened by the King on 23rd July 1969, a few weeks after his investiture as Prince of Wales. It cost £115,000 and replaced a row of medieval buildings which opened directly onto Ship Street. The timber-framed 20 Ship Street gives a feel for what properties here may well have looked like. The Ovolo marking suggest and early to mid 17th century date with the frontage restored around 1970.

Wheat Street & Buckingham Place

Turning right at the top of Ship Street, we have the Coliseum Cinema, opened on Christmas Eve 1925. It was designed as a cinema but with facilities for live shows as well. It boasted seating for 800, 10 dressing rooms and  and ‘a splendid stage, by far the biggest in the county…with space in front for a full orchestra.’ It replaced the ‘Electric Theatre’ Cinema which had also been in Wheat Street from at least 1913.

Some of the other grand houses in Wheat Street date back to the 17th century with 1-3 Buckingham Place  the grand L shaped group at the end being even older - possibly 16th century - but with several later re-configurations.  The remains of the medieval Lower water Gate is in the corner of their back garden which borders the Captain’s Walk. There are also Tudor windows making it the oldest domestic property in Brecon. The name ‘Buckingham Place’ only dates back as far as 1860, an historian of the time saying it was “conjectured’ that the Dukes of Buckingham had lived there previously. Church courts were sometimes held here during the period of the Commonwealth.  John Chales Pratt, Earl of Brecknock was living here in 1866.  Gwenllian Morgan(1852-1939), first woman mayor of a Welsh town lived here at the beginning of the last century and served as mayor in the Coronation year of 1911.  She was often called Miss Philip Morgan - taking her father’s first name.  She herself  was part of an old Welsh family who traced their ancestry back to Brychan the Welsh prince who gave his name to Brycheiniog.  As a keen historian she did much to shape our understanding of the town’s past - and research the life of the noted Brecon poet Henry Vaughan (1621-1695). She was also author of the first and many subsequent guide books to the cathedral.