This image shows a building on the Treforest Trading Estate in the 1930s-40s.

About Treforest Trading Estate.

Treforest Trading Estate, near Pontypridd, was set up as part of the Special Areas Act of 1934. The act was created to help parts of Britain with high unemployment, and it offered support to businesses to set up in these areas. When the Nazis began seizing Jewish businesses in Germany in the years after 1933, many Jewish refugees fled here to establish their businesses with help from this scheme.

By May 1940, 55 businesses started by Jewish refugees were running at Treforest. They provided jobs for around 1,800 local people.

Leonard Taylor photographed the development of the Estate. This image is from an album produced by Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners, Consulting Engineers, and presented to him by H L Ford, Consulting Architect, in 1974.

Depository: Amgueddfa Pontypridd Museum.