Penydarren House – The Melting Pot

Merthyr’s Lost Landmarks: Merthyr’s Grand Houses

Following on from the recent article about Gwaunfarren House (https://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=8282), here is a pictorial look at just ten of the magnificent ‘grand’ houses that we once had in Merthyr, but have been swept away by ‘progress’.

Firstly, the aforementioned Gwaunfarren House…

The home of the Guest family – Dowlais House…

The home of the Homfray family, Penydarren House….

The home of the Crawshay family (pre-Cyfarthfa Castle), Gwaelodygarth House….

Gwaelodygarth Fach…

Sandbrook House, Thomastown…

Gwernllwyn House, Dowlais…

Vaynor House…

Ynysowen House, Merthyr Vale…

Bargoed House, Treharris…

All photos courtesy of the Alan George Archive.

If anyone has any more information or any memories of any of these houses, please get in touch. Also, if anyone has any photos of other lost houses or landmarks in Merthyr, please let me know.

Memories of Old Merthyr Tydfil

We continue our serialisation of the memories of Merthyr in the 1830’s by an un-named correspondent to the Merthyr Express, courtesy of Michael Donovan.

Bidding goodbye to Plymouth, let us walk up to Penydarren, but to fall into line with what has been previously stated, now imagine ourselves at the old turnpike gate close to the Morlais Castle Inn. The road inclining to the right must now be followed.

After a short time the tramroad from the basin would be crossed, and only a few yards previously, the branch into the works would be seen. The gates, or rather the lower gates of the works are here, and passing through, the works would be virtually surrounding you, at least the rail shed, the brickyard, an the new mill, but persons other than hauliers with their horses etc. were not allowed in that way, so we must keep to the turnpike road for a short distance, having the tramway on the left, when another gate would be come to opposite the entrance to Penydarren Park.

A composite of parts of the 1851 Ordnance Survey Map showing Penydarren House and Gardens (left) and the Penydarren Ironworks (right)

Only a few yards further on the tramway again crosses the road, and over this very crossing the turnpike gate (the Penydarren gate) was hung. The gate house on the left was only recently removed by the District Council.

The clump of buildings on the right from the entrance gate to the works was agents or other employees residences, with the offices of the works in front of them. The tramroad kept to the right, and did not rise as fast as the turnpike road. There were no houses on the right-hand side of the road until the tramroad from the Morlais Limestone Quarries had been crossed.

The first come to was occupied by Mr Morgan, the blast furnace manager, but there were some cottages on the left before coming to the tramroad. There was a brick cistern near the crossing that was made for the use of the locomotives at work on the lower, or basin road, and upon one occasion, while being filled, the boiler exploded.

Before proceeding further, let us glance at the prospect on the right. Immediately in front were the blast furnaces, five in a row and one detached, a little to the right; but before reaching them the Morlais Brook, or dingle in which it ran, would be seen, then a long incline leading up on the left. This was used for the removal of cinders or other refuse, no doubt, after the tip on the riverside had become as large as could well be. On the other side of the incline were the blast furnaces, with a large spherical wrought-iron regulator for the blast between the engine houses.

To the left of the furnace yard are, or were, the hitting shops; to the right, after the blast furnaces, was the refinery, the the smiths shop, a self-acting incline to lower coal forge and mill use; then the rod lathe, the forge (or puddling forge) followed these mills where bars, sheets and slit rods were made. The rail mill was the lowest, and the sheds extended to the gates at the bottom of the works.

To be continued at a later date……

Merthyr Tydfil in 1803 – part 3

From: The Scenery, Antiquities and Biography of South Wales, from material collected during two excursions in the year 1803. Volume 1, by Benjamin Heath Malkin (1807)

Pages 268 – 272

In such a review of the increasing wealth and population, which these important manufacturers are yearly conferring on the country, we may well exclaim with Jago,

Hail, native British ore! of thee possess’d,
We envy not Golcenda’s sparkling mines,
Nor thine, Potosi! nor thy kindred hills,
teeming with gold. What! though in outward form
Less fair? not less thy worth. To thee we owe
More riches than Peruvian mines can yield,
Or Montezuma’s crowded magazines
And palaces could boast, though roof’d with gold.

This town, as it may properly be termed, is now by far the largest town in the whole principality. Its population, in the year 1802, was found to be upwards of 10,000; and it is supposed that it amounts at this time, December 1803, though at the interval only one year from the date of the numeration to considerably more than 11,000; and this is to be understood without the including the suburbs, as we made denominate it correctly enough, of Coed y Cymmer, on the Breconshire side of the River, the population of which is at least 1,000. Swansea, heretofore the largest town in Wales, exceeding every other town by at least 1,000 inhabitants, is now nearly, if not quite, doubled by Merthyr Tydfil. It is true, external appearance of Merthyr Tydfil is not to be compared with that of Swansea.

The House of Mr. Homfray at Penydarren is large and elegant, with fine and well planted gardens, greenhouses, hot-houses, and all the accommodations befitting the residence of a wealthy family: but the splendours of Merthyr Tydfil begin and end with this mansion. When the first furnaces and forges were erected, there could not exist the slightest glimmering of prescience, that this little obscure Welsh village would, in less than 40 years, grow up to such a magnitude, as to be far more populous than any other town in Wales.

The first houses that were built were only very small and simple cottages for the furnacemen, forgemen, miners, and such tradesmen as were necessary to construct the required buildings, with a common laborers who are employed to assist them. These cottages were most of them built in scattered confusion, without any order or plan. As the works increased, more cottages were wanted and erected in the spaces between those that had been previously built, till they became so connected with each other, as to form a certain description of irregular streets, very much on the plan of Crooked Lane in the City of London. These streets are now many in number, close and confined, having no proper outlets behind the houses. They are constantly very filthy for the most part, and doubtless very unhealthy. Some streets, it is to be observed, have within these few years being built, and more are building, on a better plan; in straighter lines, and wider, having decent houses, with commodious outlets, and other necessary attentions to cleanliness and health.

In some of the early, and rudely-connected streets, we frequently see the small miserable houses taken down, and larger and very respectable buildings erected in their stead. Such improvements are increasing with some degree of rapidity. Shopkeepers, innkeepers, forge-men, some of them at least, and in no inconsiderable numbers, are making comfortable fortunes, and consequently improving their dwellings. Mr. Crawshay, however, is more conspicuously qualified to set them an example of industry rather than elegance. His house is surrounded with fire, flame, smoke, and ashes.

The noise of hammers, rolling mills, forges, and bellows, incessantly din and crash upon the ear. Bars and pigs of iron are continually thrown to the hugely accumulating heaps that threatened to choke up every avenue of access. It is more humourously than truly said in the neighbourhood, that such scenery is most congenial to the taste, such sounds most lulling to the repose of the owner. The fact however is, that the situation of the Master’s dwelling was fixed long before Mr. Crawshay came into it; and when it is considered how conveniently it lies for the superintendence of the business, few men, brought up in the habits of commercial prudence, would consult agreeable prospects and domestic elegance, at the expense of that best security, the ever-watchful eye of a principal. The machinery of this establishment is gigantic; and that part of it, work by water, among the most scientifically curious and mechanically powerful to which modern improvement has given birth.

The most remarkable piece of mechanism in Merthyr Tydfil is the great water wheel made by Watkin George. Its diameter is 50 feet, and it has the power of 50 horses. It has the advantage of water from above, on its centre, and beneath it; or, in other words, it possesses all the forces of an overshot, breast, and undershot wheel. I apprehend it to be the largest in the Kingdom. Watkin George and William Aubrey, with the two principal engineers, and they are both natives of this country. Watkin George in particular, who planned and executed this immense undertaking, was a common village carpenter. Owing to his success in these mechanical inventions, he got forward by degrees, and became at last so useful to Mr. Crawshay, as to obtain a share in his works. He has lately quitted the concern with from thirty to forty thousand pounds in his pocket. This is one among the most remarkable instances of wealth acquired by the untutored ingenuity of natural faculties.

Memories of Old Merthyr

We continue our serialisation of the memories of Merthyr in the 1830’s by an un-named correspondent to the Merthyr Express, courtesy of Michael Donovan.

Taliesin Williams by Joseph Edwards. ©Photo courtesy of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales

The Rev J Carroll, the Catholic priest, resided on the Glebeland. He used to write a political letter to the Silurian weekly. Taliesin Williams’ residence was in Castle Street, but the schoolroom entrance for pupils was in Castle Field Lane. He had the most prominent school and the reputation for being somewhat too strict. My recollection of him, however, is quite clear, that he did not punish severely without great provocation. I can acknowledge that he gave me a slap once, and once only, but that it was also fully deserved must also be acknowledged.

As far as can now be recalled not one of his pupils can be named as alive now, except the writer. The late Mr Thomas Jenkins, of Pant, was supposed to be the last – but I am still left. The last of the family of that generation, Miss Elizabeth Williams, died about a year ago in the vicinity of London.

A Mr Shaw also had a school on the other side of the same lane. His son was an artist. John Thomas (Ieuan Ddu) can also be hazily recalled as keeping a school, but more vividly as a bass singer.

Mr John Millar, who, in conjunction with his brother Robert, carried on the brewery at Pontycapel, kept the Wheat Sheaf for many years, and afterwards moved to the Lamb. There was also a weaver, of the name of Wilkins, about the Glebeland, one of whose daughters married Mr W E Jones, the artist. The other daughter married and emigrated. The Merthyr Library and Reading Room started in the house at the corner of Castle Street and Glebeland.

Upon coming up to the Brecon Road from Caepantywyll, if we had gone on to Gwaelodygarth it would have led us past the entrance to the “Cottage” and Penydarren farm yard, past which the road leads to Penybryn and Pant, but keeping around by the Penydarren Park wall we came to the road to Dowlais close to the Penydarren turpike gate.

Mr Richard Forman, when manager of the Penydarren Works, resided at the “Cottage”. Mr William Davies, of the firm of Meyrick and Davies, lived there subsequently, and then Mr John Daniel Thomas, many years the high bailiff of the Merthyr County Court. Mr Grenfell, when the manager of Penydarren, resided at Gwaunfarren. Mr Benjamin Martin followed him (moving from the yard there) when becoming manager. Prior to this I always heard it called the Dairy. Occasionally one of the partners remained a short time at Penydarren House, but the gardener (named Price) used to sell the produce raised there.

Gwaelodygarth Fach a.k.a. “The Cottage”. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

It was at Penydarren Ironworks that the first iron rails were rolled. They were known as the “fish-bellied” pattern. Tredgold, the authority upon the strength of iron, had a piece of iron supplied him with “Penydarren” upon it, by a firm of merchants in London, to whom he applied for a specimen of Welsh iron for experimental purposes. This fact is recorded in his treatise on the strength of iron.

To be continued at a later date…..

A Full House – part 1

by Barrie Jones

My paternal grandparents lived in 12 Union Street, Thomastown, Merthyr Tydfil. My grandfather Caradog JONES was born in Troedyrhiw in 1896 and was one of five brothers who were coal miners, as was their father, grandfather and great-grandfather before them. Crad’s great-grandfather John Evan JONES was born in Abergwili, Carmarthenshire, in 1814, moving to Duffryn, Pentrebach, sometime in the 1840s to work in the local Plymouth Work’s mines.

By contrast, my grandmother Margaret Ann nee BAILEY was born in Merthyr Tydfil in 1898, her great-grandfather Abraham BAILEY, was born in Bristol, Gloucestershire, in 1804, arriving in Merthyr town with his extended family sometime in the 1850s. Abraham was a street hawker of earthenware goods, and for a while in the late 1850s to 1860s, ran a china and earthenware shop in 6 Victoria Street, Merthyr Tydfil. For the most part, he and his sons Abraham and Thomas, and his son-in-laws were street traders. My grandmother must have inherited the Bailey entrepreneurial gene, as to augment the family income and help purchase number 12 Union Street; she took in boarders, mainly ‘travellers’ and ‘theatricals’. My father once commented that coming home from school each day he was never sure where in the house he would be sleeping.

12 Union Street is one of 23 terraced properties in the northern portion of the long street that runs at right angles to the top of Church Street. The southern portion of the street contains the imposing Courtland Terrace. The dual terraces of Union Street leads off Church Street up to the boundary wall of the now derelict St Tydfil’s Hospital, formally the Merthyr Tydfil Union building, the ‘Workhouse’. A terrace numbered 1 to 11 on the left hand side and a terrace numbered 12 to 23 on the right hand side. All the houses were three bedroomed apart from numbers 1 and 23 which had extended frontages on Church Street and were much bigger properties. Number 12 being an end of terrace property was flanked by the lane leading up to Thomastown Park and thence on to Queen’s Road.

Union Street is in the Thomastown Conservation Area, the first area to be designated in Merthyr Tydfil. Built from the 1850s onwards on a grid-iron pattern, Thomastown has the largest group of early Victorian buildings in Wales. Built for the middle classes, the professional and commercial people of the town, its best examples are Church Street, Thomas Street, Union Street (Courtland Terrace) and Newcastle Street. This area (Thomastown) striking toward the higher and open ground of the ‘Court Estate’ was the first exclusively residential area to be created by those in the top stratum of Merthyr’s population. Thomastown was the forerunner of what was to occur at the end of the 19^th century in the northern part of the town between the parklands of Cyfarthfa Castle and Penydarren House. These later developments contained even larger and more prestigious properties.

The two terraces of Union Street must have been one of the later developments. The 1876 Ordnance Survey Map shows only the single terrace of numbers 1 to 11. The 1881 census records both terraces but 7 of the 23 properties are shown as uninhabited, (numbers 3, 6, 7, 15, 16, 17 and 18), indicating that the development of the street was barely finished in 1881.

The census returns for number 12 clearly shows that the occupiers in the early years were part of Merthyr’s ‘middle’ class:

3^rd April 1881 – Margaret PRICE, retired publican

5^th April 1891 – James JONES, decorator

31^st March 1901 – Thomas GUNTER, boot and shoe dealer

2^nd April 1911 – Thomas GUNTER, boot and shoe dealer

(Thomas GUNTER was the manager of the Leeds Boot Warehouse, no. 33 Victoria Street and was a leading figure in both the Merthyr Chamber of Trade and St. David’s Parish Church.)

To be continued…..

Merthyr’s Lost Landmarks: Penydarren House

In the very first volume of the Merthyr Historian, published in 1976, the eminent local historian Margaret Stewart Taylor wrote an article entitled ‘The Big Houses of Merthyr Tydfil’. One of the houses she mentions is Penydarren House.

That excerpt is transcribed below, with the kind permission of Dr Fred Holley, President of the Merthyr Tydfil Historical Society.

Penydarren Place, or as it was also called, Penydarren House, was the first luxurious house in Merthyr and I imagine it must have been a status symbol, something that made younger men envious. The Penydarren House we knew, that was pulled down about ten years ago, had been divided into two, Penydarren House and Penydarren Place, but the rooms inside were off fine proportions and showed what a grand mansion it was originally. It was built about 1786 by Samuel Homfray, joint owner of the Penydarren Iron Works with his brother Jeremiah. The two were sons of a Staffordshire ironmaster, Francis Homfray. He started the Penydarren Ironworks and besides three sons, also had two daughters who married Crawshays.

Elizabeth Homfray was the wife of the William Crawshay who built the Castle in 1813, when her brother’s grand house was in its glory. There is a description of Penydarren Place by J. G. Wood in that year:-

“The splendid Mansion of Mr. S. Homfray at Penydarren- situated upon a gentle declivity – is sufficiently removed from the town by the extent of the pleasure grounds, and contains all the conveniences and luxuries requisite for a family of wealth and importance. The gardens, which at first wore the appearance of sterility and barreness are now abundantly productive. The hot-houses, grape-houses, etc., furnish their respective fruits in profusion; and walks laid out with taste and judgement present several points from whence the silver Taff may be seen to great advantage.”

Penydarren House

Samuel Homfray is said to have entertained lavishly until he left Merthyr after becoming High Sheriff of Monmouthshire in 1813. He also owned the Tredegar Ironworks. He went to reside at Bassaleg, and became a Member of Parliament, while Penydarren House was inhabited by William Forman, who had put a great deal of money into the Works and was one of the owners. Forman was an ordnance agent at the Tower of London, then headquarters of a government arsenal, and he was known in the City of London by the nickname of ‘Billy Ready Money’, owing to his wealth and readiness to finance speculative ventures. A smaller house, Gwaelodygarth Fach, later known as the Cottage, and only demolished after the war, was built at the top of what is now The Grove for one of his sons, Edward. This Edward Forman was an enthusiastic swimmer and intended to have a swimming pool in the grounds, but before it was dug, he went, as he often did, to swim in the Blue Pool, Pontsarn, had an accident there, and was drowned in 1822. The name Forman survives in Forman Place, near Garth Villas.

Penydarren House was demolished in 1957.

Detail from an 1875 map showing Penydarren House

Margaret Taylor Stewart’s full article can be read in Volume 1 of the Merthyr Historian.

Romans in Merthyr

I’m sure most people have heard of the Roman Fort at Penydarren, but how many of us know that much about it?

The first evidence of Roman occupation at Penydarren, was discovered in 1786 by workmen building Penydarren House for Samuel Homfray, owner of the Penydarren Ironworks. The site for the house (near the present day Penydarren Park) had lain undisturbed for centuries, and as the workmen began digging the foundations for the house, they firstly discovered a number of Roman bricks, and when these were cleared, they revealed a beautiful tessellated pavement made from hundreds of differently shaped and coloured clay cubes. However, no records were kept of what was discovered, but the story was passed down the generations orally, and the story was recorded by Charles Wilkins in his ‘History of Merthyr’ in 1867 – the first book written about Merthyr’s history.

In 1902, plans were made to build a new football ground at Penydarren Park, but before work could begin, a committee was formed to investigate the site. It wasn’t until this excavation that it was discovered that the remains were actually part of a Roman Fort.

Excavations started in September 1902, 200 yards west of Penydarren House. After removing the soil to a depth of about five feet, a hypocaust – a form of Roman under-floor heating was discovered. The hypocaust was connected to the remains of a furnace. Just about 12 yards from the furnace, the excavators found the remains of a brick building and a boundary wall. The remains of a Roman well were also discovered.

penydarrenpark_romanwell — Roman well discovered at Penydarren Park.

Two further excavations were carried out at Penydarren Park in 1957, and the eastern and northern defences of the fort were discovered. The eastern defences consisted of ‘two outer ditches and a rampart of clay with a rubble core, based upon a cobble foundation’. The northern rampart was of a similar design. At the north-eastern corner of the fort, the rampart was preserved to a height of five feet, its rubble core composed of large boulders, probably used as reinforcement for the corner. Within the rubble core a ten-inch stone-lined post-hole was found which indicated the existence of a timber angle tower.

The actual plan and dimensions of the fort are not known, but if we go by other typical Roman fort designs of the period; and assume the well found in 1902 was centrally placed within the fort, and a square outline is also assumed, then the dimensions would have been in the region of about 500 feet square across the rampart crests, and would have covered an area of almost 5¾ acres.

penydarren_park_planoftheromanfort — Plan of the Penydarren Roman Fort

But when was it built? The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales states:

“The dateable material is almost all early and clearly indicates that the fort was founded by Frontinus in the period 74-78 AD. It does not appear to have been held for very long. Recent re-examination of the pottery evidence indicates that occupation continued during the first third of the second century but no later.”

Pottery recovered from the site points to an early foundation for the original timber fort, very likely during the governorship of Julius Frontinus, which was replaced by stone fort around the turn of the second century. The bath-house which was discovered outside the fort’s southern defences is probably contemporary with the rebuilding of the fort itself, but the latest pottery recovered from the site is Trajanic, which suggests that the site may have been abandoned in the Hadrianic period and its garrison removed to man the northern defences of the province.

As we speak archaeological excavations organised by the Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust are in progress around Merthyr, so who knows what further secrets may be revealed?

Photo and plan courtesy of Old Merthyr Tydfil (http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm)

For more information about the Romans in Merthyr, check out the link below:
https://ggat.wordpress.com/2015/12/16/romans-in-merthyr-tydfil/