COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS

Completed in 2024, the workshops have been constructed from a row of derelict garages between The Hanging Gardens and the Wild Oak Cafe. The Project owes its existence to the hard work of a small group of volunteers who have moved mountains of rubbish from the site. It has been generously funded by the Landfills Tax Disposal Tax Communities Scheme, providing workshops in wood and metal working.

In a project run in partnership with Compton’s Yard Trust, the first community workshops have taken place.

The first garage was restored in 2022 with funding from Hafren Dyfrdwy. The Apple House completed, houses the Community apple press – which is wheeled out to Great Oak Street each year to press fruit – and driven around surrounding villages for their apple days.

How to be involved in this project; Volunteer on the Community Apple press. Have a project but no tools/space? – hire a workshop! If you are a skilled crafts person, run courses from here. Volunteer on the Hanging Gardens maintenance team.

The main block of garages are set in the remains of a row of stone-built houses which have been reduced in height and roofed with corrugated asbestos sheets. The houses are shown on the 1^st Edition OS Map of Llanidloes (1886-87). The north wall survives in stone, but much of the rear wall (east) has been replaced with concrete blocks. The southern section has more stone walling intact with a window opening in the east wall. Where the northern garage has been rebuilt, this section was originally a wider house extending forward (west) by an extra c.2m and also ran several metres north where a modern tool-store compound is situated. Evidence of the foundations of the wider house is visible in the ground surface. The garages were rebuilt in 2024 to form community workshops and a house for the community apple press.