A Caerphilly county borough tourist attraction has been repurposed to provide community support during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Llancaich Fawr Manor is a tourist attraction owned by Caerphilly County Borough Council, located in Nelson, which portrays life in 1645 through live interpretation to around 60,000 visitors and school children each year. It also boasts conference rooms, an education centre, café, restaurant and gift shop.
When Covid-19 restrictions forced the venue to close its doors to visitors, it adapted and used the facility as a hub to provide support to the local community. Many of its staff volunteered themselves to be redeployed to the Council’s Buddy Scheme, where they collected prescriptions and shopping for vulnerable residents who were shielding, with others joining the Track and Trace Programme team.
The education centre was temporarily repurposed as a distribution hub during the height of the outbreak, with donations collected by staff and parcels created for delivery to food banks in the county borough.
Over the summer holidays, Llancaich Fawr’s bar and restaurant areas were transformed into childcare hubs, run in partnership with the Council’s Youth, Arts Development, Healthy Schools and Music services, to ease childcare issues for blue light workers.
The attraction has continued to adapt, taking a new approach to providing services for visitors in line with social distancing requirements; such as online workshops and outreach services for schools, takeaway meal services and new outdoor seating areas for diners.
Cllr Sean Morgan, the Council’s Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member with responsibility for tourism, said “I’d like to thank the team at Llancaich Fawr for their willingness to completely change the way that they work throughout the pandemic. The repurposing of the building demonstrates how versatile our tourist attractions are and what a valuable resource they offer our communities.”
