PENARTHIANS have been urged to contribute photos, stories and memorabilia towards an exhibition into the history of the Penarth Pier Pavilion building.

A month long exhibition is set to be held in January next year into the much-changed history of the Pavilion, including its time as The Marina Ballroom, Peg’s and The Captains Bar, up to its latest guise as the hugely popular Penarth Pier Pavilion.

It is hoped that people will donate old photos and share their memories about the history of the building to help create a timeline of events that happened at the Pavilion.

Throughout its history the pavilion building has been used as a music-hall, cinema, theatre, dance hall, boxing hall, night club, a snooker hall and a gymnastics club.

It has also featured performances from the likes of Tom Jones, The Four Tops and Matt Monro during its heyday, while many Penarth couples enjoyed their first dates at the ballroom.

Alice Turner, fundraising and sponsorship manager of the Penarth Pier Pavilion, is urging Penarthians to dig through their attics so they can find long-forgotten items to donate to the exhibition.

“We want people to come forward with photos, post cards, stories and anecdotes about the pavilion over the last few decades,” she said.

“We want to add it all together into a living archive.”

She added: “We want to preserve people’s memories for future generations.

“We want to focus more on peoples stories and people’s memories as they are the most fascinating.

“People have used the building since the 1930’s and 1940’s and we want to hear their memories about it.”

She added that the inspiration behind the idea came from Peggy Doidge, whose husband Langdon owned the pavilion from 1952 until 1982 when it was known as The Commodore, after she brought down an archived box of photos charting the history of the building.

Peggy said that she hoped that the exhibition would shed some light on the history of the building during its time as The Commodore, and has encouraged people to bring in photos of some of the many events and parties that were held there.

To contribute towards the exhibition ask at reception at the Penarth Pier Pavilion.