THE STRAND HALL
“Finem Respice”
— CONSIDER THE END
In 1876 two market halls were built, Wyeside and the Strand Hall.
The Bligh coats of arms, with the family motto of ‘Finem Respice’
The owner Mr Oliver Morgan Bligh of Cilmary Park chose to use yellow bricks for the building of the Strand Hall. He used a semi classical style with a rose window in the pediment.
The look of the building might have been passed as a Nonconformist chapel with its side isles, porch and narthex. The Bligh coats of arms, with the family motto of ‘Finem Respice’, ‘Consider the end’, enclosed in a medallion is positioned in the porch.
The first Bligh to inherit the estate of the Price family of Cilmeri near Builth was Thomas Price Bligh : he was succeeded by his brother, Oliver Morgan Bligh , who kept a draper's shop in Brecon . They were a branch of the Blighs of Cornwall whose most distinguished member was William Bligh of the ‘Bounty ’, Vice-Admiral of the Blue.
Stanley Price Morgan Bligh (1870 - 1949), landowner and author was born on 15th February 1870 in Brecon, the only son of Oliver Morgan Bligh and his wife Ellen (nee Edwards ) of Clifton. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Oxford, became a member of the Inner Temple and was called to the Bar in 1895 . Until he took over the management of the Cilmeri estate from his mother he practiced on the South Wales circuit. Though a professed Liberal he took little part in politics, but he gave years of valuable service on the County Council. When the Fourth National Conference, circa 1893, failed to reach agreement on the matter, Bligh erected his own memorial to Llywelyn ap Gruffudd on a site on his own land near the place where the prince is believed to have been killed in Dec.1282.
He died on 15th January 1949, childless, and his estate was sold in 1950.