IT WAS interesting reading in the Argus on Saturday that a grant had been awarded to Tredegar House for the redevelopment of the old laundry building.

In 1963 I was one of a number of boys who were allowed by the nuns to go down there usually to perform odd jobs for them. One day I was asked along with an itinerant worker named Tom if we could remove the old washing machine from the building.

We were taken into the laundry which comprised of a number of separate rooms and shown the machine set in the middle of one room and which had obviously been made by a Cooper as it was one wooden barrel which rotated inside another wooden barrel and mounted on a cast iron frame.

It was driven by a four inch belt from a rotating rod in the ceiling and this rod then went past the entrance hall into a third room and was driven by four inch belt from a large electric motor on the floor. 

Needless to say that we destroyed this appliance as requested and thinking that we were in the money when breaking both barrels up, all we got was hundreds of buttons. The drive rod was still in the ceiling for many years after.

Shaun McGuire
Mole Close
Bettws Estate