Taff Vale Railway

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.

Some little little distance below the bridge of the Taff Vale branch to Dowlais is come by – the objection to obtaining the parliamentary powers to make which has already been alluded to, but one thing was done that has not been stated. The minerals under Scyhorfawr (sic.) land were in the hands of the Plymouth Company (or rather Mr A. Hill, for he had become sole proprietor), and to prove they had not been all worked a pit was sunk as near as could be to the centre line of the intended railway. Persons called it “spite pit”. However, it was done for a purpose, and it answered it.

The terms of the settlement have been mentioned, but the various fencings cannot be. I can recall one rather angry meeting in which Mr E. J. Hutchings tried to make things smooth, with some success. This was the last fight between Sir J. John Guest and Mr Anthony Hill. They had had many encounters before, and found each other sturdy opponents, and Anthony Hill, on being told of Sir John’s death, with tears in his eyes, said: “Ah what fights we have had”.

Sir John was a Whig, Mr Hill a Tory. They differed, therefore, in political matters, but it was in other matters they combated most; for instance, Sir John was chairman of the Taff Vale Railway Company, and wanted the line to be made in a straight line from the Troedyrhiw Station, keeping the old church tower as a guide. This would have materially affected Plymouth, and as anyone can now see, Mr Hill compelled its making with the minimum of injury either by way of severance or otherwise to his works.

Sir John is buried in Dowlais; Mr Hill in a lonely grave in Pontyrhun. Peace to their manes. I can bear testimony to the goodness of both. It may not be remembered very clearly, but Troedyrhiw Farm was then the freehold of the Dowlais Company, and upon the parting of Guest and Lewis it became solely Mr Lewis’s, and by the irony of fate the minerals are worked by pits sunk by Mr Hill, thus forming a part of what is yet known as Hill’s Plymouth Collieries, although the one who gives the name has passed away above 40 years.

Troedyrhiw Farm. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

By way of antithesis to differences, let me cite a case of another description. The ownership of some land was determined by by the course of the river, and the different properties were leased to ironmasters. Time rolled on, the surface was of little account, so that the river spread out and shifted the course of it’s ordinary current. When the working of the minerals was approaching, the line of the boundary necessarily arose. Instead of litigation or any unpleasantness, those that were interested arranged together in a friendly way, and showed a modern instance of what Pope said of the man Ross:

Is there a variance? Enter but his door.
Baulk’d are the courts, and contest is no more.

To be continued at a later date.

The Railways of Romance – part2

The engines of the “Rhymney” Railway do not stand out clearly in my memory. I fear that, in my enthusiasm for the “Taff”, I never did justice to a line that dared to compete by taking folk to Cardiff. It had its advocates, however, and I recall that it was commended for an honest turn of speed. The “London North Western” also suffered the same injustice. In those days of restricted geographical knowledge we were unable to put the credit of the “London North Western” its importance on the way from London to Lancashire. As I remember it then, in its black coat and sleek contours, the “London North Western” engine carried an air of restraint and culture, suggesting, perhaps, an elegant curate. It came among us kindly, but it was never really of us.

But there was one engine that we classed apart from all others. It was the dear old “Brecon and Merthyr” in its faded coat of brown. What degree of precision that line has now acquired I do not know. Since those old days it may have grown meticulous, and, like the “Cambrian”, begun to sub-divide its breathless minutes. But in the period of which I speak nobody ever asked the “Brecon and Merthyr” to run to time. It was not even expected. People were, in the main, quite satisfied if it came in on the proper day. It had, no doubt, good reason for its tardiness; and when it arrived at last the general relief was so charged with fine emotion that pity and forgiveness floated easily to the top.

A train on the Brecon and Merthyr Railway approaching Torpantau in the 1940s. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

Looking back I am driven to believe that, for us small boys, the “Brecon and Merthyr” fulfilled a literary purpose quite outside the intentions of its directors. In that stage of literary taste we were, most of us, given to the assiduous study of Deadwood Dick and the whole fraternity of Canyon, Gulch and Bowie Knife. All our young romanticism, which otherwise might have hung loose in the air, centred about the “Brecon and Merthyr”. It was our stage-coach, moving through the terrors of the wild and woolly West. The other railways went through the civilized and ordered belts of Glamorgan; but the “Brecon and Merthyr” wound its way through lonely places in the frowning hills. When, long after the appointed time of arrival, it had not even been signalled, who knew that some “foul-play” had befallen it? Desperadoes might have sent it crashing into the lake at Dolygaer, or it might be that at Cefn masked men had boarded it, covering the driver with their “derringers”, while others looted whatever the guard’s van held as the equivalent of the gold nuggets of our literature.

Many of those who, in that long ago, kept with me the vigil of the trolleys are now staid citizens with small boys of their own. It may be that, with the hypocritical virtue of age, those old companions now chide their youngsters should they come home a little late, bringing with them a faint odour of fish and vegetables. But it may be, too, that if any of those little boys of former time chance to read what is here written they will temper paternal judgement with new mercy, for so they must do if they can remember the thrill of those dark winter evenings when, from that far romantic void, the “Brecon and Merthyr” came home at last – with driver and stoker lit by the glow of boiler-fires to the semblance of heroes more than mortal.

This article was transcribed from the book ‘The Legend of the Welsh’, an anthology of J. O. Francis’ writings published in 1924.

I would recommend anyone to try to track down a copy of the book – it’s a fantastic collection of some of the short works by one of Merthyr’s best, but sadly forgotten. writers.

The Railways of Romance – part 1

Today marks the 140th anniversary of the birth of one of Merthyr’s greatest writers – J. O. Francis. To mark the occasion, one of his excellent short essays is transcribed below, following a short introduction by Mary Owen who wrote a marvellous biography of him.

John Oswald Francis (J.O.) was born at 15, Mary Street, Twynyrodyn in 1882, and lived later at 41, High Street, next door to Howfields, when his father, a blacksmith, opened a farrier shop in the busy shopping centre. In 1896 he entered the County Intermediate and Technical School on the day of its opening and benefited greatly, like many others, from the education he received there. It formed the grounding for the rest of his life. A blacksmith’s life was not for him. In 1900, he gained a scholarship to University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, where he graduated with first class honours in English.

He lived for the rest of his life in London, where he was well known as a dramatist, journalist, broadcaster and a popular public speaker. He found fame in 1913 with his play, Change, about ordinary Welsh working-class people and the problems they were facing as changes were taking place in politics, religion and education. It was the first of its kind and gave a new genre to drama, which influenced writers for decades. Although he lived away from Merthyr Tydfil for most of his life, his knowledge of it in his youth inspired him to write about it in the years that followed until his death in 1956. His many short comedies helped to bring about the popularity of amateur dramatics, especially in Glamorgan. He was a pioneer and he became a leading member of the First Welsh National Drama Movement. He was regarded as ‘a distinguished dramatist, ‘a gentle satirist, and ‘always a Merthyr boy’.

Mary Owen

The Railways of Romance

None of us can determine which of the impressions we are always unconsciously receiving is being most deeply written on our minds. What abides is, often enough, that which might least be expected to remain. It is, too, sometimes a little incongruous, as if memory were in part jester, playing tricks with recollection – perhaps in kindness – lest the past should have too grim a visage.

Setting up to be a serious and philosophic person, I must confess to some perplexity over my remembrance of South Wales. There is an interloping thought that persists in creeping into the midst of more exalted memories. I cannot think of the high places of my early destiny – my home, my school, the houses of my more generous relations, and the chapel of my juvenile theology – but that a railway station crowds unasked into the mental scene. In the station of that Town of the Martyr in Glamorgan, an there, no doubt, small boys, stealing away from the harsh realities of the High Street, still snatch a fearful joy upon the trolleys, and staring away past the signal box, weave for themselves the figments of young romance.

Merthyr Railway Station in the early 1900s. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

The small boy’s zest in railway stations has, I may argue in self-defence, a basis in the deep instincts of humanity. In the old primitive world the barbarian, looking up on the sun, was overwhelmed by a sense of its vast power. He made a god of it, and bowed in reverence. So, also, that unequivocal barbarian, the average small boy, beholds in a railway engine an example of power well within the range of his understanding. It is, perhaps, the same old instinct of adoration that kindles in every healthy youngster his burning desire to be a railway-guard.

Even in this riper stage, when life holds joys more attractive than the right to blow the whistle and to jump authoritatively upon a moving train, I find that a railway station can still exercise a certain lure. To every good Welshman, Paddington and Euston are wondrous places. He may not be one of the happy pilgrims, but it is a pleasure merely to look at carriages that go out under such banners as “Cardiff”, “Fishguard”, “Aberystwyth”, “Dolgelley” or “Barmouth”, and if he is not quite a curmudgeon he can find a vicarious delight in the blessedness of those departing.

But Paddington and Euston have a strenuous air. They do not encourage people to loiter upon trolleys and watch the pageant of the trains. In that station of the Martyr’s Town there was more tolerance. Over Paddington and Euston it had also this other advantage – it did not monotonously receive and despatch the rolling-stock of a single company. Oh, no! It had trains in a variety that I have never since seen equalled. Almost all the lines in Glamorgan gathered to it, just as all paths are said to lead to Rome.

Simply to enumerate the companies that sent their trains to pause under that grimy but catholic roof is to recover something of the rapture of the schoolboy “with shiny morning face”. We had the “Great Western” and the “Taff”; the “London North Western”, the “Rhymney”, and the “Brecon and Merthyr”. I am sorry that, by some kindly roundabout way, the Barry Railway did not run in also. But I am sure that it was then much more than a project.

We small boys of the station-hunting breed knew the different types of engine point by point. We had each of us a favourite. Bitter indeed were our disputes on the question of comparative worth, and devotion went occasionally to the chivalry of fisticuffs. Squeaky voices were raised in partisan abuse. Young eyes shone with the light of a noble championship. (Grown-up people, I have since learnt, land themselves in the law courts for issues less important than those falsetto controversies).

The engine of each company had its own characteristic quality, fully appreciated in our loving study after school hours and in the joyous emancipation of Saturday. The “Great Western” arrived from some vague place called “Swansea” – made after the “local” model, and with its well-known “tick, tick!” rather like a stout lady in a dark-green costume catching her breath after exhausting movement. To many of us the “Taff” was the most impressive of them all. I daresay that on a general suffrage, with a secret ballot to nullify the influence of some of our brawnier members, the “Taff” would have been voted the finest thing that ever went on wheels. How big and burly was the “Taff” engine as it swung past the signal box! How cheerfully it whistled, and how inevitably did it suggest a robust representation of John Bull!

Often did we wonder what would happen if it failed to stop before it reached the buffers. About our expectant platform hung the legend of a day when an engine had crashed right through and gone in mad career almost to the door of the Temperance Hall without. But not for us were such catastrophes! They were the story of an older era, a reminiscence of giants before the flood.

An old print showing the terrible accident mentioned above at Merthyr Station on 16 May 1874

To be continued…….

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.

Now it always occurs to me that the doctoring system is a remainder of what in other cases would be called the truck system. Pray understand, I know how careful and skilful medical men are generally, and how admirably they perform their duties, yet there is always the thought that the system does not always co-ordinate with those general principles adopted in other things.

My own conviction is that truck in the early age of Merthyr was actually a necessity. When the works really began they were small, and no certainty of continuance. I am well aware of attempts that have been tried in various systems to alter it, but the system seems too firmly rooted to be altered for some time at least. An experiment in the adoption of a another method is, I believe, now being tried.

After a while Plymouth had Mr Probert (who by the bye, had been an assistant of Mr Russell), and so remained until his death, I think, but yet doubt that he resigned previously. Penydarren had Mr John Martin, and Mr Russell retained Dowlais, but it passed into the hands of his nephew Mr John Russell, for some time, and on his leaving Dr John Ludford White came to Dowlais.

This gentleman married a niece of Mr Wm. Forman, of the firm of Thompson and Forman, Cannon House, Queen Street, London, and after some years moved to Oxford, with the intention, it was said, of taking higher degrees. Dr White obtained the appointment through the recommendation of the London physician of Sir J John Guest, and in order that an accurate knowledge of the requirements might be, had visited Dowlais to see for himself. I remember him there, and an incident followed that will be mentioned when Dowlais is visited which will show the kind-heartedness of Sir John, and I hope also to mention one demonstrating his decision of character and another where I saw him weep.

We now return to Mr Russell’s surgery. A little further down, on the other side was Adullam (sic) Chapel, and cottages thence to the road to Twynyrodyn, while on the same side as Mr Russell’s was the way from the High Street, John Street by name, cottages somewhat irregular. The old playhouse also stood here; yes reader. It was a stone and mortar structure, and was for a long time unused.

An extract from the 1851 Public Health Map showing Tramroadside North from Church Street to the Old Playhouse

Further on there was the Fountain Inn, between which and the Glove and Shears the road passed to Dowlais over Twynyrodyn, Pwllyrwhiad etc, but we cross and a few yards brings me to what was the boundary wall of Hoare’s garden, which continued down to where the line to Dowlais is now.

The bottom end of Tramroadside North from the 1851 map

It has been my pleasure to see many gardens, but in all my experience I never saw one kept in such trim as this. Upon its being taken for the railway, Hoare started a garden and public house, if I remember well, at Aberdare Junction. Owing to the Taff Vale Company not allowing anyone to cross the line, a very long way around became a necessity to get there, and he did not do as well as anticipated or (I think) deserved.

Lower down the tramroad were some cottages on the right hand side, in one of which, adjoining the Shoulder of Mutton, a cask of powder exploded. It was kept under the bed upstairs for safety, and, lifting the roof off its walls, it fell some dozen yards away. The roof was covered with the thin flagstones often used and very little damaged. No one was fatally injured but one or two were injured, and altogether it was a wonderful escape. Moral: Do not keep a cask of explosive material upstairs under the bed!

To be continued at a later date……

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.

Charles Herbert James *(1817-1890), M.P. for Merthyr between 1880 and 1888*

It may, perhaps, be apropros to explain as to the basin and Merthyr Tramroad. In “Tredgold on Railways” it is stated that the tramroad was made under Parliamentary powers, but upon my saying so in his hearing the late Mr Charles Herbert James told me it was not so, but that it was constructed by private arrangement. Be that, however, as it may, it is certain it was made with a branch to the canal at Merthyr, and the total number of shares was 14, of which nine belonged to the Dowlais Company, three to the Penydarren, and two to the Plymouth Companies.

These proportions remained until the Dowlais Company’s application to Parliament to construct the branch from the Taff Vale Railway to Dowlais, when, after a good deal of fighting, the Dowlais Company agreed to hand over their interest in the Tramroad if the opposing companies withdrew opposition.

It may, perhaps, be unknown to some of your readers that Parliament would not give powers to make a railway unless it was shown to be a public benefit, and, therefore, the conveyance of passengers as well as goods, other than the requirements of the works, had to be proved and the obligation of carrying for the public undertaken. The Act was passed, and the line being made, passengers were taken to Dowlais down the incline. Through carriages were run from Cardiff, and were detached at the bottom of the incline, and reconnected as necessary, but it did not do very well, and a fatal accident arising from the carriages running wild caused a discontinuance of that passenger traffic.

As far as can be recollected, some buses were started to run, but they were subsidized by the Dowlais Company for some time. At the first opening of the Taff Vale Railway to Merthyr – it had previously opened to Navigation (Abercynon) – the Dowlais Company made a connection, and drew their buses to the Basin tramroad alongside of what is now the connection; unloading, or rather, the transfer of their traffic from the railway to the tramroad being carried out at the foot of the incline. For their assistance by way of evidence, Mr John Locke, the engineer of the then so-called Grand Junction Railway was had, and in describing the old tramroad, he distinctly stated it was not usable for locomotives. Upon its being conveyed to him that there was in the committee room a person who had gone over it on an engine with load scores, if non hundreds of times, he corrected his stated, and qualified it by adding “not economically”.

It has been stated that nine shares were given up by the Dowlais Company; of these, five were apportioned to Penydarren, and four to Plymouth, their respective shares thus becoming: Penydarren, eight; Plymouth, six. Although the Penydarren Works came to a stop, these shares continued as an appanage, and upon the acquisition and re-starting of Penydarren by the Plymouth Company, the shares naturally passed to that company, and although the whole has now become of little value (at least, at the present) it would seem as if the old road from Penydarren end was now entirely vested in the Plymouth Company.

To be continued at a later date…..

From The Cambrian 180 years ago today…….

Merthyr’s Bridges: The Brandy Bridge – part 2

Within a matter of years of opening, people started remarking on the instability of the new ‘Brandy Bridge’. It was not uncommon for the bridge to ‘bounce’ if a horse and cart drove over it. In 1925 the driver of a road-roller reported serious movement in the bridge as he passed over it. When tested, it was noticed that each cross-girder twisted seriously as the roller drove across the bridge over a certain speed, but would then correct themselves after the roller had passed. After structural tests were performed, it was concluded that the cross-girders were too lightly constructed for the traffic using the bridge, and a two-ton maximum weight limit was imposed.

The Borough Council became increasingly worried about the situation. Of major concern was the fact that if a serious fire broke out in Abercanaid, the fire brigade would be unable to attend as the fire-engine weighed well in excess of two tons. The Borough Engineer examined the possibility of using one of the other bridges nearby – the ‘First Brandy Bridge’ or the old Llwyn-yr-Eos Bridge further down the river. Neither of these proved a viable solution due the cost and length of time it would take to make either bridge structurally sound enough to carry road traffic.

Again, bureaucracy between several parties intervened, and it wasn’t until 26 July 1929 that a start was finally made on a solution – constructing a ferro-concrete arch over the Taff, using the existing abutments, with reinforced concrete girders spanning the Great Western (formerly Taff Valley) Railway line, and the Plymouth Railway line being lowered to permit the line of the roadway to be maintained. The contract for the work was given to Lewis Harpur, grandson of Samuel Harpur who oversaw the construction of the original bridge. The repairs cost £4,430 and the bridge re-opened to traffic on 28 February 1934.

The ‘Second Brandy Bridge’ in 1934 following repairs. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive.

In December 1965, after exceptionally heavy rainfall, the River Taff turned into a torrent. The Plymouth Weir roughly 450 yards downstream, which had been disintegrating for some time, finally collapsed, releasing all the debris and silt which had been accumulating behind it. With the removal of this ‘barrier’ the flow of the river increased rapidly, undermining the foundations of the abutment on the west side of the bridge. The bottom of the abutment was ripped from its base, taking with it the bottom end of the arch, and consequently twisting the whole arch structure and breaking the roadway from the abutment. Below are some photos showing the damage.

Photos courtesy of the Alan George Archive

The bridge was rendered unusable. Within five days a temporary Bailey Bridge was installed by the army, which remained in operation until a new bridge was built.

The new bridge, the ‘Third Brandy Bridge’ was built down river from the old bridge. A reinforced concrete structure, it opened in December 1967, and is still in used today carrying traffic over the river and railway into Abercanaid.

The ‘Third Brandy Bridge’. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

Of the two previous bridges there is no trace. The first bridge was dismantled during the 1960’s, and the second shortly after the new bridge opened.

That is the story of the ‘Brandy Bridge’…but not quite. One question remains – why is it called the ‘Brandy Bridge’?

The original bridge was informally called the cinder bridge, built to carry waste from Anthony Hill’s works to Abercanaid,and the story goes that the trams that were used to transport the waste over the bridge were horse-drawn. Apparently the horse in question was called ‘Brandy’, and it is said that the bridge was renamed in his honour. How true this story is remains unclear, but it would be nice to think that there was some truth in it, and that a simple, hard-working horse was remembered in this way.

Merthyr’s Bridges: The Brandy Bridge – part 1

The ‘Brandy Bridge’ as it is commonly known, is actually, historically three separate bridges.

The ‘First Brandy Bridge’, commissioned by Anthony Hill, was built immediately below Brandy Bridge Junction in 1861, to carry the Plymouth Ironworks Tramway over the River Taff, Taff Vale Railway and Plymouth Railway. It was a square span in three sections; the main section was over the river and was about 80ft long, made up of two wrought iron plate-girders mounted on a masonry pier on the east side and a masonry abutment on the west.

After the closure of the Plymouth Ironworks in 1880, the bridge began to fall into disrepair, but was still used by pedestrians going to and from Abercanaid whilst a new bridge was being built 100 yards upstream.

Plans for the ‘Second Brandy Bridge’ had been discussed as early as 1857. In August of that year, a committee, consisting of among others Robert Thompson Crawshay, Anthony Hill & G T Clark was set up by the Local Board of Health to consider building a bridge across the Taff to Abercanaid, as up until then, the only pedestrian access to the village was via a ford called the Plymouth Crossing.

A section of the 1851 Ordnance Survey Map showing the Plymouth Crossing

By 1870 however, a bridge still hadn’t been built, much to the understandable exasperation of the population of Abercanaid. On 22 January 1870, the villagers held a public meeting where a proposition was made that “the first and surest way to obtain a bridge and a road to Abercanaid is by memorialising the Local Board of Health, and that this meeting has great confidence in the present Board that they will take prompt and active measures to obtain for us – a bridge”.

By 6 August the committee had investigated several sites but were all vetoed due to expense, until a site, at the old Plymouth Crossing was agreed upon. The total price for the new bridge was estimated to be between £400 and £500, and the committee approached the Taff Valley Railway Company for a contribution. The committee had not, however, prepared for the ensuing pettiness and inflexibility of the various landowners affected by the building of a new bridge and road.

It would be 10 years before the petty wrangling had been ironed out, and on 7 August 1880, the Local Board of Health, following an interview with the Taff Vale Railway Company, who were planning to expand their network, estimated that a new bridge would cost £1,600, with the railway company offering £600 towards the project. Further disagreements followed with the committee for the building of the bridge insisting that the Taff Valley Railway Company should pay a higher percentage of the cost.

The negotiations continued for two years until an agreement was finally reached, and it wasn’t until 1883 that work finally began on the bridge.

Samuel Harpur, Engineer and Surveyor of the Local Board of Health, was put in charge of the construction of the new bridge, and a contract was given to J Jones to deal with the excavation and stonework. The construction of the bridge itself was entrusted to The Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company of Darlington who designed, built and erected the bridge which was 12 foot wide and made of steel lattice-work girders and steel cross-members. The bridge was opened late in 1883.

The ‘Second Brandy Bridge’. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

To be continued…..

In Search of the Dowlais Railway

by Victoria Owens

When the Taff Vale Railway between Merthyr Tydfil and Cardiff received its authorisation in 1836, the Act gave the Railway Company leave to construct a branch to the tramroad at Dowlais. For various reasons, the Railway Company procrastinated over the work, with the result that the Dowlais Iron Company eventually took responsibility for making the Branch themselves. The terms of the 1849 Dowlais Railway Act authorised them to build not only the line, but also a passenger station, situated close both to the Iron Works’ lower entrance gate and the Merthyr-Abergavenny road.

Although the 1849 Act allowed the Iron Company five years to complete the railway, it was in fact ready in three. Financed by Sir John Guest, MP for Merthyr Tydfil, promoter of the TVR and soon to be sole partner in the Dowlais Iron Works, at a mile and sixty-eight chains in length, the steep gradient of its route up Twynyrodyn Hill meant that its lower part operated as an inclined plane. The Newcastle firm of R & A Hawthorn designed a stationary engine capable of drawing trains of up to six carriages in length and 33 tons in weight over s distance of 70 chains and 30 links, up the 1 in 12 slope. It had two horizontal cylinders of 18 inch diameter and 24 inch stroke and worked at 50 strokes per minute. The steam pressure was 30 lbs psi.

Viewing its erection in March 1851, a local newspaper drily enquired whether in ten years’ time, a ‘chronicler of local events’ might have reason to report the completion of a notional line ‘from Dowlais to the extreme point of Anglesey.’

Modest it might be, but at the Dowlais Railway’s official opening in August 1851, Royalty graced the ceremony. Three days before the event, just as Sir John and his wife Charlotte were about the set off on a carriage drive, the horse-omnibus drew up outside their home, Dowlais House, bringing Charlotte’s cousin Henry Layard, known as ‘Layard of Nineveh’ on the strength of his recent archaeological discoveries in Assyria, and with him, his friend Nawab Ekbaled Dowleh, whom the newspapers called the ‘ex-King of Oude.’

With the help of Works Manager John Evans, Charlotte organised every stage in the celebration, from welcoming a party of Taff Vale Directors who had travelled down from Cardiff for the occasion, to pairing up her ten children to walk in the procession: ‘viz. Ivor and Maria; Merthyr bach and Katherine; Montague and Enid; Geraint [Augustus] and Constance; Arthur and little Blanche.’ Flanked, probably as much for show as for protection, by the local police, they made their way to the station, decked with greenery for the occasion, with the school-children and company agents following. The ‘trade of Merthyr and Dowlais’ joined them along the way, all to the accompaniment of music from the combined bands of Cyfarthfa and Dowlais.

An 1880 map of Merthyr and Dowlais showing the Dowlais Railway – shown in red from top right to bottom left

From Dowlais station, the passengers travelled to the top of the incline where their locomotive was uncoupled. Messrs. Hawthorn’s engine lowered the carriages down the slope, and the intrepid travellers made their way on to Merthyr. Some of them chose to continue by TVR to Abercynon, but the Guests and their visitors preferred to return to Dowlais.

Later in the day, a ‘small party comprising about five hundred ladies and gentlemen’ enjoyed a sumptuous meal at the Iron company’s Ivor Works, to be followed by speeches and dancing. Sir John, whose health was none too good, left the festivities early but Charlotte remained on hand to propose the healths the Directors of the Taff Vale railway and to open the dancing with Rhondda coal owner David William James as her partner. With Layard as his interpreter, the Nawab set the seal upon the day’s pleasures by expressing his delight at the hospitality that he had received in Dowlais and asserting that he had never enjoyed himself so much as he had during his ‘brief sojourn’ in Wales.

Although Sir John envisaged the Dowlais Branch primarily as a mineral line, he seems to have been perfectly happy with the requirement that it should also accommodate passenger traffic. Records indicate that over 1853,it came in for usage by 755 first class, 1884 second class and 7253 third class passengers but, sad to say, disaster struck at the end of the year. December 1853 witnessed an ugly accident when a passenger carriage over-ran the scotches to hurtle down the Incline unchecked and two passengers lost their lives, with five more suffering serious injuries. Officially speaking, passenger traffic on the railway ceased in 1854.

Unofficially, as Merthyr Tydfil writer Leo Davies would explain, it was usually possible – given a combination of unscrupulousness and agility- to obtain a lift. In an article of 1996, he described the whole unorthodox procedure in graphic detail. Access was obtained via the wingwall of a bridge and through some railings. The sound of the hawser gave advance warning of the approach of a train on the incline – ‘four ballast trucks, each half-filled with sand.’ Travelling typically at ‘a nice, sedate trotting pace’ there was evidently ample scope for the non-paying passenger to grasp the outside rim of the buffer, and ‘swing both legs up and around the buffer spring housing.’

An aerial view of the Twynyrodyn area. The Keir Hardie Estate is being built to the left and the route of the Dowlais Railway can clearly be seen running vertically in the photo. Twynyrodyn School is visible middle right. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

The Dowlais Railway closed finally in 1930 and the trackbed would be filled in sixteen or so year later, over 1946-7. In the 1990s, when Leo Davies reminisced about the ‘Inky’ as he fondly calls it, the ‘straight, green, grass grown strip of land’ ascending Twynyrodyn Hill remained visible. Perhaps, with the eye of knowledge or faith it remains so. Admittedly, former pupils of Twynyrodyn School remember the old line’s route, but without local knowledge it is not easy to trace. Only a few yards of broad green path survive to mark the site – perhaps – of the old trackbed and the name ‘Incline Top’ given to a hamlet at the edge of a plateau of rough ground extending towards Dowlais and its great Ironworks commemorate the location of Sir John Guest’s last great enterprise.

Sign for Incline Top, photographed May 2019

Bank Holiday Fun

The article transcribed below appeared in the Western Mail 140 years ago today (5 August 1879):-

Monday was observed as a holiday, and all business establishments were closed, the majority of the population apparently turning out pleasure seeking. The camp at Forest Mountain, Ynysowen, took away a very large number of the inhabitants, and several school picnics into the country were organised.

Nothing in the way of amusement was got up in Merthyr, but the employed on the permanent way of the Taff Vale Railway had their annual outing, and, with their wives, sweethearts, etc, to the number of about 1,500, were conveyed to Merthyr in a train of 24 carriages, which the company had, as usual, kindly placed at their disposal. The excursionists were accompanied by Mr. J. Hurman and Mr. T. H. Riches. Arrived at Merthyr, the large party marched in an orderly manner through the High Street of the town to Penydarren Park, on which delightful spot athletics sports, etc., were indulged in. On the present occasion, the committee by whom the arrangements were made dined together at the Court Arms, kept by Mrs. Brown, by whom and Mr. J. P. Jones the refreshments were served in the park.

About half-past seven in the evening the excursionists returned by their special train to Cardiff, having thoroughly enjoyed themselves.