Maesteg: North’s Navigation Collieries office

Though the building itself is quite plain, the decoration above its front entrance caught my eye and so I took a few photos. 

This Grade II-listed building, on the corner of Castle and Talbot Streets in Maesteg, was built in 1908 to house the offices of North’s Navigation Collieries (1889) Ltd. The British Listed Buildings website describes the building as follows:

Built of rubble with limestone dressings, with a slate roof. Flemish Gothic style. The main front to Talbot Street is of 3 bays, and the corner is splayed, returning along Castle Street as one triple and 3 single bays. Two storeys. Narrower central bay has an arched entrance with 2 tall paned overlights and frieze inscribed NNCs 1889 Ltd. Tall three-light windows on the side bays under a flush relieving arch, the original top sash and 2 fixed lights below surviving on the west side. The upper floor of the central bay is gabled and set forward on cusped corbelling, either side of a central window. This has a deep head inscribed AD 1908, and a 2-light cusped blind tracery window above, rising into the gable. Windows to the side bays repeating those below. The roof has a raised coped gable at the left end, and is hipped at the splayed corner, with a metal finial.

It’s interesting that the listing describes the building as being constructed ‘of rubble with limestone dressings’, as that’s not how it was described at the time it was built. A brief article in The Rhondda Leader, on 12 December 1908, reads as follows:

The New Offices for North's Navigation Collieries, Lmited, at Maesteg.
The new offices which Messrs. North's Navigation, Ltd. have built at Maesteg are situated in the centre of the town, at the junction of Talbot Street and Castle Street, with the chief frontage facing these two thoroughfares. The principal entrance is in Talbot Street, and access is obtained to all the rooms on the ground floor by means of a broad tiled corridor running the whole length of the building, and leading to a. stone staircase by which the upper floor is approached. To the right of this corridor are placed the general office and pay office, while to the left are the deputation and waiting rooms and the strong room for the safe keeping of plans and other documents in case of fire. Externally the building is faced with Forest of Dean stone and Bath stone [my emphasis], the general treatment of the elevations being simple in character except at the entrance. The work has been executed by Messrs. Radford and Greaves, contractors, of Derby, under the personal superintendence of Mr. Radford, a partner in that firm and a resident of Porthcawl, the designs having been prepared by Messrs. Pugin and Pugin, architects, of London and Liverpool, who have received the assistance of the mining agent, Mr. Gibbon, in supervising the carrying out of the work.

 
Then I became curious about North's Navigation Collieries and discovered this piece, published in the Western Mail on 8 January 1889

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MAESTEG.
WHAT COLONEL NORTH PROPOSES TO DO.
A ROSY OUTLOOK.
On New Year's Day Colonel North, the "nitrate”' king, who is the head of the syndicate that recently acquired the property of the old Llynvi and Tondu Company, announced when at Maesteg that it was proposed to spend some £50,000 in developing the district. This was, indeed, good news, and further inquiry only adds to the rosiness of the prospect. Though the syndicate do not purpose [sic] restarting the Llynvi Works at present, negotiations are now nearly ripe for acquiring further mineral property to that already possessed—some 7,000 or 8,000 acres—the object being to sink a pair of new pits for steam coal. The output of the colliery when developed, it is expected, will be at the least 1,000 tons a day. It is also intended to erect new and expensive plant for coking and washing, the apparatus to be of the most modern description. The railway communication is also to be re-organised, and new lines are to be laid down for the purpose of bringing the collieries already possessed—two large steam coal and four large bituminous coal concerns—into nearer communication with the main lines. At Tondu the Park Slip Colliery is already being enlarged for the purpose of ensuring a greater output, and a new blast furnace and Coppѐs stoves are to be proceeded with at an early date. With the exception of the new colliery, the whole of the work has been practically commenced, and even the sinking of the new pits is but a matter of a very short time, as the only question is as to their exact location. Already £50,000 has been spent, and it is computed that the further immediate outlay will reach well nigh double that amount. The syndicate, which is known as “North's Navigation,” in addition is amongst the chief promoter of the Vale of Glamorgan Railway, which proposes, not only to accommodate a district that is totally without railway accommodation at present, but, having access to the Llynvi and Ogrnore district, would be an effective means of supplying bunker coal from the Llynvi and Ogmore district, to the Barry Docks. A good authority on the subject says that Colonel North is a most enterprising man, and if the workmen of the district but utilise their opportunity and show their appreciation of what Colonel North is doing, he is the kind of man, not only to deal with the district with anything but a niggardly hand, but to put into it every half-penny that its development may call for.

Colonel North occupies such an important place in public attention just now (remarks the Liverpool Daily Post’s London correspondent) that anecdotes about him are being told everywhere. Although his display of riches may be ostentatious, his generosity is admitted on both sides. On the occasion of the coming of age of his son a party was given in celebration of the occasion. During the supper which formed part of the proceedings the colonel handed to his son a cheque for £10,000, not as a portion of the patrimony, but as a little present with which to buy some memento of the occasion, or to take a little holiday.

Somebody has been making up a list of Colonel North's recent purchases. There was £100,000 for his estate in Wales, £60,000 for the whole of the statues and pictures in the Italian Exhibition, and now £10,000 for Kirkstall Abbey, besides the little bill at the Metropole, which will probably come to about £2,500. This gives a total for these things alone of £172,500.

It was recently reported that Colonel North’s colours would shortly be seen on the turf. It may now be taken for granted that such will be the case, for the gallant colonel, who was such a large purchaser of greyhounds at the Barbican last December, has now two horses in training—Iddesleigh and Mirror—with R. Sherwood, at St Gatien House, Newmarket. Iddesleigh was purchased on his behalf (and not for Lord Randolph Churchill, as previously reported) from the Kingsclere Stable, and is said to have cost1,000 guineas, whilst Mirror, a four-year-old filly by Speculum out of St Helen’s, won three races last year and two in 1887. Both should do good service for their new owner.

 [The portrait above is from The Aberystwith Observer, 30 November 1893.]

This Colonel North sounded like quite the entrepreneur. An entry on Wikipedia describes his life more thoroughly; I have just extracted the part relevant to Maesteg:

John Thomas North (30 January 1842 – 5 May 1896) was an English investor and businessman.

In Britain he set up North's Navigation Collieries (1889) Ltd. in Glamorgan, south Wales, a venture which turned out to be one of his most successful. By 1920 his Welsh company employed over 6,000 miners and produced over one million tons of coal per year. The development of North's Navigation Collieries Ltd. was largely responsible for the rapid growth of Maesteg and the Llynfi Valley during the years 1890 to 1910. 

[The portrait above is from the South Wales Daily News, 6 May 1896.]

Having died in 1896, Colonel North never actually saw this office building that bears his company’s name. As he died at the relatively young age of 54, I wondered about the cause. This report, which I have abbreviated, and the portrait shown below are from the Evening Express, 6 May 1896:

The Nitrate King Gone
PASSED AWAY IN HIS SON'S ARMS.
Died as he Lived in the Midst of Business Excitement and Worries.
Colonel John T. North, head of North's Navigation Collieries and chairman of several great undertakings, dropped down dead at his office at half-past four on Tuesday afternoon from a fit of apoplexy. At the time of the fatal seizure the gallant colonel was presiding at a meeting of directors, and death is stated to have been almost instantaneous. Medical aid was at once summoned, but the doctor on his arrival pronounced life to be extinct.
[The article goes on to report the reaction amongst colleagues and the business world, as well as more details of the manner North’s death – he had earlier eaten a meal of oysters and they were initially suspected as a possible cause but his death was later confirmed to have been the result of a heart attack.]
THE COLONEL'S CONNECTION WITH MAESTEG.
The news of Colonel North's death reached Maesteg by wire from the "Western Mail" office. The colonel was chairman of North's Navigation Collieries (Limited). He had visited Maesteg once since the purchase of the Llynvi Collieries, in 1889, and on that occasion made a present of £500 to his workmen to celebrate his visit. He was presented with an illuminated address by his workmen at Maesteg, Tondu, and Ogmore. The local Conservative Association invited him to stand at the last general election as a candidate for them in the Mid-Glamorgan Division, but he regretted that he had consented to contest the West Leeds Division. All the workmen at Maesteg, Tondu, and the Ogmore Valley held Colonel North in high esteem, because he was a munificent contributor to all funds started on their behalf. Although he seldom visited the district, he was fully informed, and took a hearty interest in all local matters, even to mere trifles. Great sorrow is felt throughout the district. 

I had no idea when I took the photos of this building in Maesteg where my subsequent research would lead me but that is exactly why I enjoy looking more closely at the built environment around me.