Historic Pontypool is in print for the final time (From Free Press Series)

Historic Pontypool is in print for the final time

REMEMBER the Waverley Hotel? Or Eastman's Limited, adorned with the carcasses of pigs. Or maybe the Fine Fare building and, of course, Sandbrook and Dawe?

Photos of all those long-gone places and many more are included in a new book, Pictorial Memories of Old Pontypool Volume 3. Many of the pictures have never been published before.

Like the previous two volumes, it was produced by Griffithstown man Bryan Roden.

He's been collecting old images for many years - from car boot sales, postcard markets and off the internet.

He explained why he started publishing the series.

"I had so many pictures," he said.

"I knew many of the photographs I'd collected hadn't been seen by a lot of people so I thought it would be good to put them in a book so everyone could see them."

Although 90 per cent of the pictures in the first volume came from his private collection, as word got round, people began to lend Bryan their own pictures.

He researched his historical information using old books, the internet, and that time-honoured capsule of ancient knowledge - the Free Press' Nostalgia column.

Bryan is now collecting material for a possible follow up to his first volume of pictorial memories of Abersychan.

Volume one of the Pontypool and Abersychan books will be reprinted before Christmas.

But this is likely to be the final volume of Pontypool pictures.

"The supply seems to be drying up now, so this is probably the final volume," he admitted.

"It is becoming a problem getting new images. But you never know what is out there."