much backbreaking work and many willing helpers in the community, the church was finally consecrated on Saturday 11 December 1926 by Joshua Pritchard Hughes, Bishop of Llandaff. The Church was demolished in 1967 due to subsidence in the colliery and a new Anglican Church of St Mary and Holy Innocents was built in Nixonville in 1974. In 1908 the first Roman Catholic church dedicated to St Benedict was officially opened by John Hedley (bishop), an attractive stone building, the entrance of which was later surrounded by a fine avenue of trees. In 1926 a new parish priest, Fr Arthur Jordan arrived and confronted with the task of building a new church because the original had been condemned due to subsidence. The new St Benedict’s, was purchased with the help of the Powell Dyffryn Colliery, and officially opened on 18 December 1932, by Francis Mostyn (archbishop of Cardiff). Before these churches were built the growing Catholic community attended Mass in Mountain Ash and in St Mary’s, Merthyr Tydfil. Both journeys involved a walk of several miles. From 1892, Merthyr Vale was served by a Benedictine priest from St. Mary’s, Merthyr Tydfil who said Mass, at first, in 26 Taff Street and later at the Rechabite Hall Crescent Street. Zion and Calfaria merged in 1974 to form the modern Baptist Church at Nixonville, which contains the first fibre-glass baptistry built in Wales. The former Merthyr Vale School was built in 1879, while the Mount Pleasant School dates from 1912, it was closed in 2010. Merthyr Vale railway station opened in 1883. The Gordon Lennox Constitutional Club was built in 1901, by the proprietor of the Brown-Lennox Engineering Company in Pontypridd, also the President of the East Glamorgan Conservative. The village developed sufficiently to create The Merthyr Vale Silver Prize Band - which won the Gwent Eisteddfod in 1905 and 1905, under conductor G. H. Thomas. Travellers' hotels and pubs that opened within the community included: The Aberfan Hotel, The Mackintosh Hotel (closed) both in Aberfan, Mount Pleasant Inn, Station Hotel (closed) and Windsor Hotel in Cardiff Road Merthyr Vale. World War Two On 8 June 1940 1,600 evacuees arrived by train at Merthyr Tydfil from Deal and Folkestone in Kent. These were young children, clutching dolls and gas masks, accompanied by their teachers, welcomed by the civic dignitaries. Later the same evening about 210 children from Deal arrived at the Gordon-Lennox Hall,