Squatters take over Cardiff pub

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The former Entrerprise Inns pub, the Tredegar on Clifton Street has been taken over by squatters after lying empty for many years. The pub was closed in 2006 due to drug problems and Media Wales has some details here of what has happened to the place.
The absurdly named “Red and Black Umbrella Collective" have taken over this building and have no doubt banned smoking whilst holding meetings about how to promote more diversity amongst Afghan goat herders and the like.
 A sign on one of the windows reads:

"We are currently renovating the pub and want to provide a cultural hub for the local community. We want to create a safe and welcoming environment for everybody. The social centre will be a drug and alcohol-free zone, for people to come together, share skills and ideas, meet new people, make art, watch films and learn new languages.”
Sounds like Chapter Arts Centre without the bar!

Photographer Tom Ashmore has gained access to the squatters and photographs of the inside of the pub appear here.
It looks like the squatters were involved in the Occupy Cardiff fiasco in which the anti-globalisation and anti-capitalist protestors all went into into JD Chaverspoons after their eviction from the outside the castle walls.This is what happens when pubs close down - the buildings become derelict and squatters get in. Actually when this place shut the area improved as the drug dealers and their customers moved on elsewhere. No one has any idea who owns the pub now - Enterprise claim they sold it or are denying ownership - if Enterprise had not let this pub get in such a bad way it would never have closed in the first place and has lain empty for 5 years. Cardiff council are also to blame for failing to enforce Enterprise to do something to this pub - a compulsary purchase order can be issued for derelict buildings and it could have sold for housing or demolished. I am not an advocate for keeping failed pubs open, especially ones with known drug problems that do nothing to enhance the area but squatters moving in is not in anyones benefit - especially the neighbours in the South Wales Echo piece.

Masons Arms, Caerphilly

Masons Arms, Mill Road, Caerphilly, CF83 3FE
Open all day,
Food served 1200-1430, 1800-2130 Monday-Thursday, 1200-2130 Friday & Saturday, 12-1600 Sunday

The Masons is situated in a residential area of Caerphilly, just to the North of the historic castle, with Aber being the closest railway station to the pub.
The Masons is a two-story building, built around the early years of the twentieth century for Andrew Buchan's Rhymney Brewery, today the pub is owned by Enterprise Inns. The pub is slightly set back from the road and built of brick with a slate roof. Today the brickwork is painted in a light green and the contrasting plasterwork is cream. The pub sign features a stonemason working on a piece of carved stone and there is a Norman-style arched window in the background, perhaps alluding to the building of the nearby Caerphilly Castle.
There is car parking to the side and front of the pub, with the main entrance being on the right hand side of the building. This leads to a lobby, with a door to the left leading to the public bar and the corridor straight ahead leading to the lounge at the rear of the pub. The Masons Arms is one of the few pubs in the area to retain this original layout of separate bar and lounge, most of the other pubs have had walls knocked through to create open-plan drinking areas.
The front bar is large, well-lit and spacious with half-panelled wooden walls, ,darts, a pool table and a flat-screen television. This bar is more popular with the younger clientèle and those into pub games, the handpumps serving the real ales are only in the rear lounge.
The lounge of the pub also doubles as the restaurant area and a set of double doors leads to a patio area with seating. Three gleaming brass handpumps are mounted on the bar in the lounge, serving Brains Bitter and two guest ales from microbreweries such as Cottage from Somerset and the more local Celt Experience Brewery based less than a mile away at the Pontygwindy Industrial Estate; a rare local outlet for this brewery.
The food consists of pub favourites featured in the menus on the tables and chalkboard specials on the walls and bar counter, advertising 'Curry of the Week' and the 'Bad Boy Mixed Grill' which features steak, chicken, lamb chops, sausage and chips. The more standard menu features dishes such as chicken with feta cheese, chorizo and pine kernels.
The Masons Arms is decorated throughout with old prints and rugby memorabilia on the walls, as well as with some of the awards this pub has won over the years. This is a real community local with events such as a charity quiz night being held on the last Sunday of every month.

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