200 years of history at Gwaunfarren – part 2

by Brian Jones

The next family to take up residence in the large house was Richard Harrap and his wife Mary with 5 children and just 3 servants. Richard was born in Yorkshire and prior to taking up residence in Gwaunfarren he lived on the Brecon Road. He was a brewer, and in 1871 he went into partnership with another brewer to form the growing company “Giles and Harrap’s”. They owned the “Merthyr Brewery” and marketed “Merthyr Ales” from their brewery on the Brecon Road, and grew the company to own 62 public houses.

Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

Eventually they were bought out by William Hancock and Co. in 1936 and brewing ceased on the Brecon Road. In 2010 the brewery was demolished however the company name lives on etched in the glass windows of “Y Olde Royal Oak” public house in Ystrad Mynach (built 1914.). Richard died in 1895 with his wife remaining at Gwaunfarren House and she decided to give the house a personal name “Glenthorne”. She passed away in 1916 whilst her son James Thresher Harrap, resided there until 1921 when he moved to the Grove.

There is a gap in the historical record after the Harrap family vacated the house sometime in the early 1920s so I was unable to ascertain the use of the property until 1937. It is likely that the downturn in the economy of Merthyr and the dearth of very large wealthy families made the occupancy of this large house uneconomic.

The house, although apparently empty, seemed to have continued in a reasonable state and not vandalised in the inter-war years. There are numerous references to the future of the house considered by various committees of the Merthyr Borough Council during the years between 1921 and 1937. The house remained in the ownership of the freeholder with the Council making enquiries about its purchase for a variety of uses. For example, in 1934 the Education Committee thought it could be used as a training centre for unemployed boys and girls. They sought the approval of the Ministry of Labour for funding to purchase the property for £6,100 but were unsuccessful.

There was a suggestion that the house be used to accommodate children with Learning Difficulties but again nothing came of these proposals until the freehold, house, garden and lodge were acquired in 1937 by The Merthyr Tydfil Community Trust. This began life as the Merthyr Tydfil Educational Settlement and was formally opened in July 1938 by Earl Baldwin and Countess Baldwin. At that time there were many such Settlements providing education and welfare services to people during the Depression of the 1930s. The Settlement continued for four years at Gwaunfarren until the building was requisitioned by the government for use by the Emergency Medical Services in 1941. There were two possible wartime uses, either for the care of injured World War II servicemen and women or for expectant mothers.

Merthyr Express – 4 October 1941

Dr. Joseph Gross wrote an essay in Volume Two of the Merthyr Historian in 1978 on “Hospitals in Merthyr Tydfil”. He stated that injured service personnel were treated at Merthyr General Hospital, St. Mary’s Catholic Hall and the Kirkhouse Hall. Instead, the house was to provide 25 beds for pre- and post-natal maternity services when the Welsh Board of Health took responsibility for the house then renamed as “Gwaunfarren Nursing Home”. Babies continued to be born there for the next 30 years.

The ownership of the building was transferred to the Ministry of Health when the NHS was formed in 1948 and it was agreed to use the proceeds of the sale for charitable purposes. However, it took until 1954 to agree a price for the building. In 1948 Gwaunfarren Nursing Home became Gwaunfarren Maternity Hospital managed by the Merthyr and Aberdare Hospital Management Committee (HMC) The beds were increased to 30 beds with similar units at Aberdare General and St. Tydfil’s Hospital. Many adults alive today were born at Gwaunfarren often staying with their mother for a considerable number of days unlike current maternity practice of short hospital stays. The unit continued for some years until there were further improvements to the maternity unit at St. Tydfil’s Hospital, including a small Special Care Baby Unit. Gradually the number of births at Gwaunfarren decreased and confinements ceased at the end of the 1960s. Some post-natal transfers were continued for a short period of time until the hospital closed in the early 1970s.

Gwaunfarren  Hospital then remained empty for some years although it was put to occasional and varied use to include a location for television filming. The land, together with the house and lodge was sold, the house demolished, and plots allocated to accommodate the present makeup of Gwaunfarren Grove. Gwaunfarren Lodge still remains today at the entrance to the original position of the drive.

Today the vast majority of the general public look at the way land is used very much in the here and now without giving much thought to its history over the ages. A review of the use of the land at post code CF47 9BJ allows us to peel away the pages of history. Now passers- by at the entrance to Gwaunfarren Grove will not know that the access road once served as the driveway to a substantial Victorian family home, educational centre, maternity hospital and that prior to all of those uses it had been a farmstead known as “The Dairy”, part of a farm of considerable antiquity.

200 years of history at Gwaunfarren – part 1

by Brian Jones

At the junction of Alexandra Road and Galon Uchaf Road is a triangular piece of land on which are sited ten houses named as Gwaunfarren Grove at postal code CF47 9BJ. Of extra significance is an additional older property named “Gwaunfarren Lodge” positioned at the entrance to the much newer residential development. The location comprises a modern housing development on land which has undergone considerable change in the last 200 years. A review of the history of this small portion of the Gwaunfarren locality reveals a sequence of events which mirror cultural and social changes in pre- and post-industrial Merthyr Tydfil. This article plots the timeline of the land use played out between the latter years of the eighteenth century and the present day.

The Medieval Hamlet of Garth comprised of land stretching from Morlais Castle to Caeracca, then south to Gellifaelog, Goytre, Gurnos, Galon Uchaf, Gwaunfarren, Gwaelodygarth and Abermorlais. Some of this land was occupied by both yeoman and tenant farmers with pasture for sheep and cattle. The freehold ownership of the land, with its few farms, passed from family to family and at the geographical centre of the Hamlet was a parcel of land then called Gwaun Faren. In 1789 Gwaun Faren was mapped by William Morrice who noted that both farms, Gwaun Faren and the adjacent Gwaelod Y Garth, had been purchased by Mr William Morgan of Grawen in 1785. That map was redrawn in 1998, and annotated, by Griffiths Bros and show in detail the fields comprising Gwaun Faren farm. This revised map conforms to the 1850 Tithe Map and particular attention is drawn to the field marked C annotated as Cae Bach (little field). This field now relates to post code CF47 9BJ which is the locus for Gwaunfarren Grove.

The 1850 Tithe Map shows field number 1901 as the homestead identified as “The Dairy” at the centre of a number of fields which made up the farm named as Gwaun Faren. The name has varied over time to include Gwaun Varen, Gwain Varen, Gwaun Faren, Gwaun Farren to the present-day spelling of Gwaunfarren. There is some debate as to the meaning of part of the name: “Gwaun=meadow” however there is some uncertainty as to the origin of “faren/Farren”. The Welsh-English Dictionary “Y Geiriadur Mawr” does not have a translation for this word and there is some speculation that it may have originated in the Irish word “Fearann” pronounced “Farran” meaning “pasture”. The book “Merthyr Tydfil – A Valley Community” (1981) published by The Merthyr Teachers Centre Group records the name as “Gwaun=meadow” and “Farren= warren” thus “Warren Meadow”.

In 1850 the freeholder of the farm was Mary Morgan the widow of William Morgan and the farmland was leased to the Penydarren Iron Company. That ironworks was less than half a mile away and the roads accessing the general locality conform in major part to the present-day road system. These were trackways and subsequently they became the present-day Alexandra Avenue and Galon Uchaf Road. There is no evidence of coal mining on the Gwaunfarren farmland however it is likely that iron stone and coal transited the adjacent trackways into the nearby iron works. The 1850 map identifies the farm homestead as “The Dairy” and it is probable that the farm produced milk, butter and cheese for the growing industrial population. The nearby Penydarren Ironworks opened in 1784 in the ownership of the Homfray family and George Forman. This was the smallest of the four local ironworks and in due course it made the cables of flat bar link for the Menai Straits Suspension Bridge. The works closed in 1857 followed shortly thereafter by the Plymouth Ironworks in 1859 whilst the two larger works at Cyfarthfa and Dowlais remained open.

Field number 1901 on the 1850 Tithe Map configures with the 2-acre piece of land that is now identified as post code CF47 9BJ. This land was leased in 1862 to William Simons for 25 years and he funded its redevelopment He was the first of two successful wealthy individuals and their families who lived there in succession until the 1920s. William was a barrister practising in Castle Street and he lived in the house with his wife and children from 1862 until 1888. He purchased the farmhouse and set about making substantial changes to that building, laid out a new garden, driveway and built a Lodge at the main entrance to the drive. His great grandson, Graham Simons later recounted a story detailed by one of Williams daughters, Phoebe, that some of the walls of the house were 4 feet thick and this perhaps indicates that some of the original farm building had been incorporated in the new house identified in the 1850 Tithe Map as “The Dairy”. A plan of the new house and garden is shown below. Note that the architect identified the house as “Gwain-faren” later named as “Gwaunfarren House”.

Parts of the old farmhouse were retained, the building substantially increased in size and an impressive new facade was built based on a Victorian style of architecture much in vogue at the time as demonstrated in an early photograph of the new house.

Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive                                      

Margaret Stewart Taylor did not include the house in her essay titled “The Big Houses of Merthyr Tydfil” published in the inaugural edition of the “Merthyr Historian Volume I” in 1976. However this was indeed a large house necessary to accommodate the first large family to reside there. The 1871 census shows that in addition to William Simons and his wife, Clara, there were 8 children and 7 staff: a governess, nurse, nursemaid, cook, laundress and 2 housemaids. Ten years later the family had increased to 11 children making a compliment of 20 family plus staff. It is suggested that there were legal disputes between William Simons, the leaseholder, and the freeholder of the land which played a part in the move of the Simons family to Cardiff in 1888.

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.

A little way down was the Owain Glyndwr Inn, of which a Mr Thomas Williams was host. He was a brother to the David Williams, Angel. He had a son whom some of your readers may remember as a druggist; his name was John Teague Williams.

There were several roads and streets leading off from this, the High Street, to the road from the Dowlais Inn up to the church; one was called Horse Street from the fact that horses always went up that way; the one on the upper side of the Bush was Church or Chapel Street, I forget which, and would have been a nearer way, but it was exceedingly steep. One of the six shops mentioned was used as a reading room.

An 1851 map showing some of the areas mentioned.

The caretaker or librarian was Mr Henry Murton, a remarkably clever man. To illustrate the character of the man let me give some anecdotes. He was engaged in the Works to carry the patterns to and from the moulders. He had a failing, and was told he had been appointed to a better position on condition that he give up the cup. Expressing his gratitude, of course, the promise to do so was made, but alas broken before the day passed. He was clever too. In Basil Hall’s voyages, reference is made to the earthquakes in South America. Murton designed and made a model of a house that would not be affected by them – this I well remember.

Merthyr Guardian – 2 February 1833

If I may interpolate a personal matter I would say it was in this reading room in the Athaneum the first account of sun pictures was read. It was Fox Talbot’s paper read on the subject before the British Association at the sitting just concluded.

Necessarily Murton’s occupation brought him into connection with master moulder, who, although a man of substance, peculiarly was not a man well informed, and interrogating Murton as to how vessels went across the Atlantic, obtained information as to the mariner’s compass. “Well” said the moulder, “I thought a big ship took boats, and then somehow the boat would guide the ship that way again”.

Passing the entrance to the Dowlais Works there were no cottages on the right hand. The small building with their back to the road were used for store houses for the necessaries of the works. The Police Station was not built, but there was a dwelling inside contiguous to the office. A David Phillips lived there, and two or three generally had lodgings there. George Cope Pearce was one, Edward Davies (we called him Ned) another; he was a brother of R P Davies, an old Dowlais man, but whose name can be seen on the base of the clock in the Circle at Tredegar. R P Davies was for a while the London agent of Messrs Guest, Lewis & Co.

Poor Ned! The last time I ever saw him was a chance meeting near the Tower of London. He had been down to one of the docks to see the ship in which he was going to California. There was no lack of substance in him for he was desirous of making a bet that he would go to any three persons that I pointed out, and persuade them he was known to them. Finding the cause for this, its necessity was avoided, and I parted from him as he went into the City Club to see his brother.

Two others sailed with him, one, Cox by name, and assistant doctor from Dowlais, and another, I think it was a Bramwell, from Penydarren, but they never reached their destination, the ship was wrecked.

To be continued at a later date…….

The Dark Side of Convict Life – part 12

by Barrie Jones

Chapter IX. Henry describes his experience of hard labour in Portland prison, and also examples of incidents between convicts and prison warders in the quarries.

The Dark Side of Convict Life (Being the Account of the Career of Harry Williams, a Merthyr Man). Merthyr Express, 19th March 1910, page 11.

Chapter IX

On a Monday morning in the month of May 1899, I was told off on parade to join No. 27 party, and after going through the usual search drill, I was marched out to the stone cutters’ yard, situated near the free men’s quarry at Portland. The distance from the prison to the quarry is not very great, and as the last gang passed through the gates, a company of soldiers, armed with rifles and fixed bayonets, closed in and followed the convicts straight to the quarries, where they break off into sentries. There were civil guards there also. At the stone yard, I was supplied with a set of mason’s tools, and instructed in the art of masonry, which I took great interest in. I continued this work for nearly four years, and finally I was pronounced a first-class mason. I helped to build the new stone prison at Portland, and also made the circular stones for the air shafts of the same. I had several changes of labour during that time, for I got transferred to the quarry party; I was employed also in No. 7 party under a warder, who was a good old fatherly sort of man, and who did not believe in taking a poor convict’s dinner from him (reporting him) for the most trivial of offences.

In the year 1901, a young convict employed in No. 54 party, in the quarry at Portland, a very quiet chap, who had very little to say, to anyone, one Saturday morning, after sweating and nearly killing himself with hard work, forfeited his two days food by simply asking one comrade to give him a lift with a stone which was beyond his strength. The officer in charge of the gang reported him to the Governor, and he was awarded the dietary punishment mentioned. This was not the first time the that the officer had taken liberties with him, but the convict had made up his mind, after being driven to desperation, to have his revenge.  On the following Monday morning, after suffering his punishment, he came out to the quarry as usual, and said not a single word to anyone, and just as they were taking the tools out of the box, the officer happened to turn his head aside, when with a dash and quite unexpected by anyone, the convict caught up an iron drill and brought it with terrific force down on the head of the officer until he was streaming with blood. The whistles were blowing all over the place, and several guards left their posts, and rushed with fixed bayonets to the rescue, but the convict caught up another drill, and broke several of their bayonets. At last, he was overpowered, and taken back to the prison. He was tried before the committee and sentenced to two dozen with the “cat.” As for the officer he received compensation and was dismissed from service. A similar assault was committed upon an assistant warder by a young “lifer.” This officer used his cutlass when he was not supposed to have used it; he also was reduced and was not allowed to wear side arms for twelve months.

Convicts sometimes met with serious accidents in the quarry. I can recollect a serious affair which happened in 1901, when one of the great stone-lifting cranes (or jibs) fell to the ground and caused serious internal injuries to two poor chaps. Stretchers were brought and they were conveyed to the prison infirmary, and their groans were pitiful in the extreme. Another case was that of a man who broke his leg, and the only compensation he received was six weeks deducted from his sentence of ten years. Sometimes convicts make terrible assaults upon their fellow convicts. I can well remember a case of a convict who was being called a one-eyed _____, took up a stone pick, and struck it right underneath the heart of a man. The former convict was taken out, and tried by civil power, and received the sentence of eighteen months. The leniency of his sentence was owing to the great provocation he had received. The chap whom he had assaulted was given up by two doctors for dead, but he got round after all, so that was an instance of small faith in medical aid. Sometimes mutinies are threatened among convicts, and a mutiny nearly happened in 1901, when about eighty convicts absolutely refused to go out to the quarries owing to receiving for their breakfast sour bread. The mutiny was checked by each man receiving a ten-ounce white loaf apiece.

To be continued…….

Merthyr’s Lost Landmarks: Merthyr Workhouse

by Carolyn Jacob

As early as February 1833, talks were held for the erection of a workhouse in the Parish of Merthyr Tydfil; the neighbouring Parish of Llanfabon had had one since 1803. These plans, however, were superseded by the passing of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, which centralised the existing workhouse system to cut the costs of poor relief and “discourage perceived laziness”. The Act grouped local parishes into Poor Law unions, under 600 locally elected Boards of Guardians. Each of those boards had its own workhouse.

The Merthyr Tydfil Poor Law Union was formed on 3 November 1836, and was overseen by an elected Board of Guardians, and they held their first meeting at the Castle Inn. For many years, the Merthyr Board of Guardians resisted the new law, and continued giving out monetary relief, and it was not until 1848 that they were forced to plan a workhouse for the town. The plans were further interrupted by the devastating 1849 Cholera epidemic, and finally, at the end of 1850, plans were agreed upon.

The new building, to accommodate 500, was designed by Aickin and Capes of Islington, and was to cost £10,000. Mr Hamlyn of Bristol was contracted to carry out the work, but by June 1851, so little work had been carried out that he was replaced by Messrs Henry Norris and Daniel Thomas of Cardiff, and the new building was completed in September 1853, at a lower cost than the original estimate – £6,880.

Waiting for relief outside the Workhouse in Merthyr Tydfil – 1873 – Anon. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

The complex was built in several ‘blocks’. The entrance block, at the west side of the complex housed the porter’s room, laundry and girl’s school. The main block, cruciform in shape, held the men’s and women’s wards, the boy’s schoolroom, a lying-in ward and the dining room and chapel.

In 1899-1900, a new infirmary block was built at the north end of the workhouse.

The complex was redesignated ‘Tydfil Lodge Public Assistance Institution’ and later became St Tydfil’s Hospital. The hospital closed in 2012, and most of the buildings were demolished in 2015.

A Massacre and a Merthyr Hero

On 9 July 1943, Allied forces invaded Sicily. This was just a prelude to the long-awaited allied assault on mainland Europe which took place at Salerno in Southern Italy on 3 September that year. Five days later, on 8 September, Italy surrendered to the Allied forces. The German forces, however, continued to fight on.

Despite fierce resistance from the German forces, and having to cope with increasingly difficult terrain, most notably during the Battle of Monte Cassino between January and May 1944, the Allied Forces made steady progress, eventually taking Rome on 4 June 1944. By the end of the month, Allied troops had reached Tuscany, and the German forces were in retreat.

On the afternoon of 18 June 1944, four German soldiers who had lost contact with their unit found themselves in the ancient hill-top village of Civitella in Val di Chiana near Arezzo.

They made their way to the local Dopolavoro, a Fascist social club, and settled down with some drinks and began playing cards and listening to the radio with the locals. Unfortunately, news of their presence in the village made its way to the local group of partisans. They went to the club and killed three of the soldiers. The fourth hid behind the bar and was uninjured, and subsequently reported the incident.

On 17 June 1944, Field Marshall Albert Kesselring, the German Commander in Italy had issued the directive:

“New rules in the war against partisans.

The partisan situation in the Italian theatre, particularly central Italy, has recently deteriorated to such an extent that it constitutes a serious danger to the fighting troops and their supply lines…….The fight against the partisans must be carried on with all means at our disposal and with utmost severity”.

Many of the inhabitants of Civitella, fearing retribution, fled from the village the very next day. Those who remained, in an attempt to show disassociate themselves from what had happened, attended a ceremony for the dead soldiers who were buried on the outskirts of the village. After a few days, as no reprisals had been forthcoming, most of Civitella’s inhabitants returned home.

On Sunday 29 June, the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul, however, SS units of the Hermann Goering Division surrounded the village at dawn and systematically slaughtered all of the men of the village (and several women who impeded them), before setting light to many of the buildings. In all 244 innocent civilians were killed in Civitella and in surrounding hamlets.

By 16 July, the Germans had retreated North, and British soldiers had arrived at Civitella. One of the soldiers was Captain John Morgan of the Royal Army Service Corps. John Percival Morgan was born in Merthyr Tydfil on 17 March 1916, and lived with his parents, Arthur and Louisa at No 9 The Parade in Thomastown. After attending Cyfarthfa Castle Grammar School, he became a clerk at Lloyds Bank in Blackwood, before moving to the Dowlais Branch of the bank where he worked until he joined up in January 1940.

When John arrived at Civitella in July 1944, what he saw appalled him. He was confronted by the charred ruins of houses, and he wrote in his report:

“Almost completely destroyed by Germans on 29 June 1944, the few remaining residents being chiefly women and children. Large areas on the pavement adjacent to the wall are still covered by dried blood, mute but powerful testimonials to this exhibition of brutality. The village is now a place of utter desolation”.

The ruins of St Maria Assunta Church in Civitella, taken by John Morgan in July 1944

As he was exploring the village, two boys rushed towards him and begged him for water. He knew something must be done – two bowsers of water arrived in Civitella that afternoon.

Over the next five months, John, helped by Father Clement O’Shea a catholic priest who was seconded to his unit, did everything within their power to help the villagers, procuring food, clothes, medicine and anything that was needed, cajoling their fellow officers and men serving under them to even forego some of their own rations to help. By December, John Morgan’s company were preparing to move north, so he and Father O’Shea decided to organise a grand Christmas party with entertainment as a way to say goodbye.

The people of Civitella never forgot John Morgan and Clement O’Shea and the help, kindness and compassion they showed in 1944. They eventually erected a plaque in memory of John Morgan which stands today in the village.

Captain John Morgan died on 15 February 1968.

If you would like to read more about this story, I would recommend Dee la Vardera’s incredible book, ‘The Road to Civitella – 1944. The Captain, the Chaplain and the Massacre’.

I would like to thank Dee la Vadera for allowing me to quote from her amazing book, and I would also like to thank Terry Jones and Mansell Richards for supplying me with additional information. Finally, I would like to thank Keith Morgan, John Morgan’s son for allowing me to share his father’s remarkable story.