Monthly Newsletter
February 2026
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What’s On at The Met
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11th Feb 7.30pm Spotlight – ‘Love Through the Ages’ - prices from £12
17th Feb 2pm Talegate Theatre presents ‘Rapunzel’ – prices from £9.50
20th Feb 7.30pm ‘The Rock Anthems show’ Prices from £22
27th Feb 8pm Comedian Kris Davies. Prices from £10
28th Feb 8pm Country Stormz - prices from £20
For more information on these and more visit:
https://awenboxoffice.com/the-met/whats-on
or tel 01495 533195
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Museum Opening Times
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The Museum is open to the public, free of charge:
Thursday to Saturday 10 am – 1 pm
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Contact us
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Museum phone number 01495 211140
Email: abertillerymuseum@btconnect.com
Web: www.abertilleryanddistrictmuseum.org.uk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abertillerymuseum
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Contact Names
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Mr G Murphy Curator
Mrs P. Bearcroft Deputy Curator
Mrs E. Ewers Chair
Mrs K. Pratley Treasurer
​Mrs Jen Price Secretary
Mrs S. Murphy Newsletter
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Vice Presidents (Annual Subscription £25)
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Rev Roy Watson
Mrs Carol Brooks
Mrs Margaret Cook
Mrs Margaret Herbert
Ms Michele Dack
Mr Ross Leadbetter
Dr Graham Eyre-Morgan
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January 100 Club
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​Due to a slow uptake of the 100 Club so far this year, the January draw was postponed until February meaning there will now be two draws this month, the results of which will be in the March newsletter though winners will be notified as soon as the draw has taken place. If you would like to join our 100 club and be in with a chance of winning, it costs just £1 per number per month. Ask at the museum for further details.
Café Prices
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From 1st April 2026 there will be a small increase in some of our café prices. It will be the first increase in thirteen months but will still offer excellent value for money.
Annual General Meeting
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Following our AGM on 30th January, it has been decided to keep our membership fee at £8 per year for regular members and £25 for Vice Presidents. Likewise our junior membership for under 16s will remain at £4. Unfortunately, it has been decided that we can no longer afford to retain our popular loyalty card for members meaning the free hot drink in our café every month (and the free treasure hunts for under 16s) ends from 1st April. Also as a result of the meeting we are pleased to welcome Kay Galloway as a new Director and Trustee and also the return of Jennifer Price as Secretary. We also welcome three new committee members, Huw Bearcroft, Jean Leyshon and Karen McKenzie. All other posts remain filled as before.
Ffrindiau Tyleri
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I am sorry to report that Ffrindiau Tyleri, which has been the driving force behind the many town events such as Winterfest and Aberfest, has disbanded. They have kindly distributed their remaining funds amongst various charities, which includes this museum and so, on behalf of the committee, I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their donation of £100.
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Thorpe Park by Sally Murphy
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Thorpe Park is yet another theme park operated in the UK by Merlin. It is home to over 30 attractions and covers around 410 acres. It is the third most visited theme park in this country, behind Legoland in first place and Alton Towers in second. After the Thorpe Park Estate was demolished in the 1930s, the site became a gravel pit. In the first half of the 1970s the gravel pit was partially flooded creating a lake which hosted the Water Ski World Championships in 1975. It is on this lake that the theme park was built in the second half of the decade. It was opened in 1979 by Lord Louis Mountbatten and its tag-line became ‘An Island Like No Other’…
Thorpe Park’s very first rollercoaster was called ‘Space Station Zero’ and was an indoor ‘dark’ ride. It did two laps of the track, the first in total darkness, the second with ‘glitter balls’ to appear as stars. In 1990 it was moved outdoors and was renamed ‘The Flying Fish’. The attraction was removed in 2005 to make way for a new rollercoaster, ‘Stealth’ (which would be the park’s flagship attraction until 2024), before being re-instated in another part of the park in 2007, where it is still in operation today.
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​Like other theme parks, Thorpe can also lay claim to many unique attractions, and one which is certainly worth a mention has to be ‘Derren Brown’s Ghost Train’ which sadly no longer exists in its original format. Derren Brown is an English illusionist and a ‘hologram’ of Derren was used to set the scene for the dark ride’s scares to come! Board the train, don the VR headset which will give you 360º all round vision, and suddenly you are completely alone on an empty, creepy, train!​​​​​​​​​
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​Needless to say you are not alone for long as weird and wonderful creatures join you at various ​​​​​​​​​​stops along the way. It was certainly one eerie ride and even after you left the train and were heading for the shop at the ride’s exit, there was one last scare awaiting you! On discussing the experience with your companions on exit, you would each find your recollections would differ as each headset was showing a slightly different version, meaning you could go on this ride several times throughout the day and have a new experience each time.
Sadly, VR headsets seem to be unreliable and invariably fail. Alton Towers tried a similar experiment by adding VR to its rollercoaster ‘Galactica’ as did Florida’s Sea World with its rollercoaster ‘Kraken’ and neither lasted long before reverting to type, and this seems to be the case with Derren Brown’s Ghost Train, because, while it is still there (now just called Ghost Train), the headsets have been replaced with actors who are very good but struggle to compete with VR.
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Thorpe park’s newest attraction, usurping Stealth as its flagship attraction, is Hyperia, pictured below. It opened in 2024 and currently holds the record for the UK’s tallest and fastest coaster reaching speeds in excess of 80mph and its height of 236 ft makes it 30 ft taller than Stealth.
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Some other records held by Thorpe Park include:
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Saw The Ride -- was the world’s first coaster themed to a horror film when it opened in 2009
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Tidal Wave – was Europe’s tallest water ride when it opened in 2000
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Colossus – held world record for most inversions (10) when it opened in 2002
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Nemesis Inferno – the coaster still holds the world record for the most number of naked riders, yes you read that right, in May 2004!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorpe_Park
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​Cadw
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I think we all have at least some idea of the work of Cadw (which means ‘to keep’), in looking after and interpreting a range of historic monuments and sites in Wales such as Conwy Castle pictured above.
Cadw was established in 1984. Before then, the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendments Act of 1913 enabled the establishment of an Inspector of Ancient Monuments for Wales. That was the start of listing and protecting the many important historical sites and structures to be found in Wales.
There were inevitably some important sites lost for one reason and another, including on account of the World Wars and the need for defence factories to be built. One example was the loss of a superb section of the medieval port wall of Chepstow which was torn down to make way for a National Shipyard in WWI.
Between the wars, the agency worked hard to record sites which would be damaged or lost on account of construction works for strategically important developments, such as a number of Bronze Age Barrows in situ at the site of the propellant works to be built at Caerwent.
The pressure ramped up in WW2, one example being the urgent despatch of an Inspector from London to save Bulwarks Prehistoric Enclosure at Chepstow which the US Army were proposing to demolish to make way for a car park!
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Meanwhile, Castell Coch, pictured here, was used as an important military headquarters in the early years of WW2 and despite some parts of the castle being closed off, there was dismay at the damage caused to the building and fitments by the troops stationed there.
It is interesting to consider that a span of thousands of years separates the oldest from the youngest buildings and sites in Cadw’s care including prehistoric fortifications as well as more recent World War fortifications . And of course it doesn’t stop there! Listing and scheduling goes on. History doesn’t stop!
Jen Price
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Margam Park’s Exciting Find
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If you followed the news in January, you may have seen a BBC report about a historic find at Margam Park near Port Talbot where archaeologists have discovered the remains of a very large Roman Villa. They have deemed the find so important they have dubbed it ‘Port Talbot’s Pompeii’. The remains are just 3 feet under the ground and because the land has not been disturbed it is believed the remains will be in excellent shape. It’s exact location is being kept under wraps for now to avoid metal detector enthusiasts targeting the site. You can read the BBC report on this using the link below:
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgk8j1gkxelo
Quick Quiz
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Why is February 2nd significant in US and Canada?
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What happened on February 3rd 1959 to make the world less musical?
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Why is February 11th 1990 a significant date?
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What was patented on February 14th 1876 and still very important in life today?
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February 20th 1962, what did John Glenn do that is back as a big new topic again?
Coney Beach
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Porthcawl’s Coney Beach Pleasure Park, closed for the final time on 5th October 2025. It is thought the park, which opened in 1918, was built to entertain American Troops returning after World War I and that, to give
them a sense of home-from-home, its name was taken from New York’s Coney Island.
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In 1920 a figure of eight wooden rollercoaster was relocated there from West Glamorgan and this wooden coaster remained in operation until 1981 when it was removed to modernise the park. In 1936 the ‘Water chute’ ride opened which proved a popular attraction until, that is, a fatal accident in April 1994 when a nine year old boy lost his life after a gantry fell onto the track and derailed a number of cars. The ride never re-opened and was closed permanently the following year.
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1994 was a bad year for the park as in August another incident occurred when a 14 year old girl suffered serious injuries after she was thrown off the newly opened ‘Top Flip’ ride. Three others were also injured, though less severely, and the ride was immediately closed and dismantled soon after. Alas just two weeks later a third incident occurred when a rollercoaster overshot the station and injured three passengers. This time though it was an operator error as the person in charge forgot to apply the brake as the train came into the station.
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Sadly further incidents were reported in the 2000s but a final incident in 2025 sealed its fate when on 13th August, a children’s coaster called the ‘Wacky Worm’, derailed and caused injuries to an adult and thirteen children. The site of Coney Island is now owned jointly by Bridgend Council and the Welsh Government who have plans to redevelop the waterfront.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coney_Beach_Pleasure_Park
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Lunar Time
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With NASA planning to send a manned mission to the moon this year, did you know that the moon is set to get its own time zone? The White House is pressing the space agency to create the new time zone, which they plan to call Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC for short) as apparently time moves quicker there than here on Earth, 58.7 microseconds per day quicker in fact and while this doesn’t sound like much it can make a difference apparently when synchronising spacecraft.
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But NASA isn’t the only body trying to create a ‘lunar time zone’. The European space Agency has also been working on the problem for some time but there needs to be a world-wide agreement. Currently it is the responsibility of the International Bureau for Weights and Measures to make sure everyone is using the same system.
With Artemis-3 due to take mankind back to the moon this year, the pressure is on to agree this new time zone.
Read the full BBC story here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68722032
Quiz Answers
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Its Groundhog Day!
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The day the music died – plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Big Bopper and Richie Valens
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Nelson Mandela released from 27 years in prison
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The telephone by Alexander Graham Bell
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He was first American to orbit the earth​
