Last Sunday I posted this photo of a slice of Rhyl townscape. The question: What might you have found here in the 1960s?
The answer is a hotel.
The photo shows corner of Kinmel Street and Elwy Street where Mrs. B.C. Black presided over 'The Central' hotel/guest house/B&B. Her description of the place as being two minutes from the prom and sea might have been a tad optimistic - but that's how landladies tended to be.
[Grammatical note – I tend to write ‘a hotel’ rather than the more correct ‘an hotel’ because the latter now seems archaic. For the same reason I write ‘will’ where ‘’shall’ would be appropriate. Learn the rules then ride roughshod over them, that’s my motto.]
That rounded corner is rather nice. It helps to compensate a little for the angular inelegance of the new-ish medical centre nearby:
Like many small towns in Wales, Rhyl is a remarkably inelegant place. Perhaps this is because - as a poor nation - we can afford only the cheapest and nastiest architects.
Rhyl has also become very prosaic; if you have any poetry in your soul Rhyl would kill it stone dead.
The town is sinking under the weight of people who arrive here already deprived and lacking in spending power.
The latest big name retailer to announce closure of their Rhyl branch is Burton / Dorothy Perkins whose High Street premises are due to close in January 2018.
Top floor of the building in the 1950s & '60s was the Regent Ballroom dance hall. Click here if you wish to read previous posts about this:
http://rhyl-life.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Regent+Ballroom
--
