Tag: Cyfarthfa

Place Names in Merthyr

by Terry Jones

In 1887, Rev Thomas Morgan, the minister at Caersalem Chapel in Dowlais, published a book entitled ‘A Handbook of the Origin of Welsh Place Names’. Below are transcribed some excerpts from the book that have a bearing to some places in Merthyr.

Abercanaid
The village is situated near to the spot where the rivulet Canaid discharges itself into the Taff. Canaid means white, pure, bright.

Aberfan
Ban – High; Banau Brycheiniog, the Brecknock Beacons. Fan is a brook that falls into the River Taff at that place. Two farmhouses also bear that name. The village is also called Ynys Owen, from a farm of that name. The railway station has been designated Merthyr Vale, and henceforth, the village will, doubtless, be know by the same name.

Clwydyfagwyr
Clwyd -a hurdle, a wattled gate; y- the; fagwyr/magwyr – a wall, and enclosure.

Cyfarthfa
Cyfarthfa is the right name according to some, signifying the place of barking. It is said it was a general rendezvous for hunters. One writer thinks it is a corruption of Cyfarwydd-fa, the place of Cwta Cyfarwydd, one of the heroes of Welsh legend.

Dowlais
Some derive the name from Dwrlais, the supposed name of the brook that flows through the old ironworks, and joins the Morlais Brook at the upper part of Penydarren. ‘Clais dwfr a glan‘ the water’s edge was an old Welsh expression. Dwr might be easily changed to dow. Dowgate, London was once called Dwrgate. Llandwr, a small parish in the Vale of Glamorgan, is now called Llandow. Others think it is a corruption of Dwylais, from the confluence of the two brooks in the place. Others derive it thus: du – black; clais – a small trench or rivulet. We rather think the right wording is Dulas: du – black; glas – blue, signifying the livid water. Our forefathers were wont to name the rivulets and rivers from the respective hue of their waters. Dulas is a very common appellation in Welsh topography, and we find its cognate in Douglas, Isle of Man. And, strange to say, Morlais or Morlas is in close proximity to Dulas in several districts of Wales, and in Brittany we find its cognate in Morlaix. This coincidence inclines to think that glas, blue, is the suffix of both names. Mor-glas – sea-green colour. Du-glas – black and blue. We have five Dulas in Wales, three in Scotland, and one in Dorset; and the word appears in different forms:-Douglas – once in the Isle of Man, twice in Scotland, once in Lancashire, and twice in Ireland; Doulas in Radnor; Dowles in Salop; Dawlish in Devon and Dowlais in Glamorgan.

Gwaelodygarth
Gwaelod – bottom, base; y – the; garth – hill. The mountain that towers of the village is called Mynydd-y-Garth, and the village resting at its base is naturally called Gwaelodygarth.

Gelligaer
Gelli – grove. This name is probably derived from Caer Castell, the ruins of which still remain near the village. It was built by Iorwerth ab Owen in 1140.

Gellideg
Gelli – grove; deg/teg – fair.

Goytre
A compound of: coed – wood and tre-  dwelling place.

The Meaning of Cyfarthfa

by Carl Llewellyn

Our Welsh laws refer to the “Tair Helfa Cyfarthfa” or the “Three Barking Hunts. The hunts were so called because the animals could either run fast, climb trees, or find safety in underground burrows, the hunter would bait his prey then send his dogs who would signal the position of the baited prey by barking.

Cyfarthfa has two meanings, either the ‘barking place’ as outlined above, or it could have been so called from the ‘echoes’ the rocky escarpment face of the Cyfarthfa Rocks made. We have been unable so far to trace any reference to the place name Cyfarthfa Rocks before the arrival of Anthony Bacon around 1765.

Another theory of the meaning Cyfarthfa was given by an old inhabitant of the Cyfarthfa district over 200 years ago. He stated that on the site of the Cyfarthfa furnaces there was formally a quarry with a fine echo, if a dog barked in the area it was repeated so strongly that one fancied that a large number of dogs had congregated in the locality.

The etymology of Cyfarthfa, according to Mr. Thomas Stephens, Merthyr poet, bard and chemist is the place of barking dogs – pretty well indicating the character of the place before the days of ironmaking. Game and vermin abounded, and the dogs held high revel there in the dense thickets and impenetrable copses.

Note that cyfar means ‘arable land’; cyfarth means ‘to bark’ or ‘to cough’ as a verb and ‘a barking’ as a noun; cyfarthwr means a ‘barker’ or ‘shouter’; cyfarch means ‘greeting’ or ‘request’ and cyfarchfa means ‘a hailing-place’.

I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.

Cyfarthfa Works in the 1870’s. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm