From the Merthyr Express 80 years ago today….
All in a good cause?
Tag: Cyfarthfa Ironworks
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.
Reader, take a ride by the Taff Vale Railway from Merthyr to Troedyrhiw, and the locus in quo ought to be recognised.
Mr Henry Kirkhouse was the chief mineral agent at Cyfarthfa, but two of his sons were with him. They resided at Llwyncelyn. Old Mr Wm Williams (known as No 8) was the mechanical engineer; he lived at Pwll Watt. Mr Thomas, the cashier, lived at Nantygwenith Turnpike Gate. Mr Jeffries was the furnace manager at Cyfarthfa, and Mr John Jones was so for Ynysfach. There were some excellent workmen at Cyfarthfa – Saunders, the master moulder of one part and Wm Thomas of the other foundry. The master fitter’s name has slipped my memory, but one of the men, David Charles, can be recalled.
Cyfarthfa was always celebrated for its machinery and engines. Watkin George, the predecessor of Mr Williams, was a man of noted ability; and, as far as known, that reputation is still maintained. George Cope Pearce was the mechanical engineer for a quarter of a century, his predecessor being his brother-in-law, John P Roe. The Williams family were good engineers too.
I forbear to mention some things that can be remembered lest I am prolix, but George Cope Pearce was so original that some two or three things will be stated. His desire for engineering was so strong as to induce his running away from home (his father was the custos of Hereford cathedral), and in coming to Dowlais he enquired for work. Seeing he was not of the class that generally applied, enquiries were made of him, with the result that, while he was hanging on in hopes, his father was communicated with, and came for him; but Sir John (Guest) agreed to take him on after spending some terms at King’s Engineering College. This was done, but his family and friends endeavoured to turn him.
In 1838 he was loco. superintendent at Dowlais; but as was the general rule, he did not get money enough to satisfy him, and went to Messrs Powell at Clydach, near Abergavenny, and engaged in their service. This becoming known, Mr Thomas Evans took him in hand, and by fair promises induced him to write a letter abandoning the idea. Cope could not get the advance expected, and ere three months had gone, Mr Evans began ruling with usual iron rod. They had a few words, and, upon Mr Evans alluding to his having written the letter, heard, “Oh yes; but I forgot to post it”. What followed need not be said. He went to Clydach, and, after a few years, thinking their machinery did not require such a high-priced man, Messrs Powell spoke to him, pointing out what an easy place he had. “Oh then you want a smash or two, I suppose. Well, I daresay that can be arranged, if you wish”. Do not think this is untrue, for it is a fact.
He left Clydach some years ago and came to Cyfarthfa. He was very friendly with William Menelaus. Menelaus was a hot-tempered man, and Pearce was quite the opposite. “Now Menelaus”, he said, “you are very foolish to go on so; it would pay you better to pay a man 30s a week to do the swearing”. He was a good horologist, a microscopist and a musician. Amongst his other makings was a machine to delineate sound curves.
My last visit to Cefn Cemetery was to pay the only tribute to his memory, and I was rather surprised at the paucity of attendance, knowing how highly he was esteemed. He sleeps, however, quite as soundly. During one of the many conversations I asked him, “Why did you leave Cyfarthfa?”. “Well, you see, I had been there some time, and got on very well with the old ones, but somehow or other, not much with the young ones, and rather than lose my temper I resigned”.
To be continued at a later date.
Watkin George
Today marks the 200th anniversary of the death of one Merthyr’s greatest pioneers – Watkin George.
Watkin George is not a name that most people think of when talking about Merthyr’s great men of the past, but his contribution to the town’s history and his legacy is incalculable.
Born in about 1759 in Trevethin, Pontypool, very little is known about his early life, other than he trained as a carpenter, but by his early thirties, he had had married Anne Jenkins (of also of Trevethin), and had moved to Merthyr to work at the Cyfarthfa Ironworks as an engineer, as his expertise in designing and building metal structures had become well known.
He soon became the foundry manager at the Cyfarthfa Works, and in 1792, Richard Crawshay appointed him as a partner in the business. One of his first projects as partner was designing the Pont-y-Cafnau (Bridge of Troughs), a combined tramroad and enclosed aqueduct built to supply the works with limestone and water.
This was closely followed by the incredible and innovative design for a mechanism to pump air into the blast furnaces – a huge timber aqueduct spanning the River Taff and providing water to power a 15m diameter waterwheel, used to work an air pump for blowing the iron smelting furnaces. The Gwynne Aqueduct and ‘Aeolus Waterwheel’ soon became famous throughout the country, and visitors would come to Merthyr just to see them. Indeed Some contemporary accounts actually referred to the Aeolus Wheel as ‘the Eighth Wonder of the World’.
In 1799, George designed what would become his most iconic structure – the Old Iron Bridge, and two years later he designed the Ynysfach Ironworks.
In about 1805, having helped Cyfarthfa Ironworks expand, George left the partnership. Reports vary on the amount of money he amassed for his 13 years of service, either £40,000 or £100,000 — “equal to one share”. He joined Pontypool Ironworks as partner to its owners Capel Hanbury Leigh (1776-1861) and Robert Smith, restructuring the works and making great improvements to balling and refinery operations.
In 1811 he prepared a design for Chepstow Bridge – a series of cast iron spans on the existing piers. His design was not adopted, and the new bridge was eventually designed by John Urpeth Rastrick. George’s designs for the Chepstow bridge are his last known work.
Watkin George died on 10 August 1822 and was buried at St Cadoc’s Church in Trevethin.
Today, of his works, the Ynysfach Ironworks Engine House still stands, and his Pont-y-Cafnau is the oldest surviving example of a cast iron railway (tramway) bridge and aqueduct, and is probably the second oldest surviving iron bridge in the British Isles (after Ironbridge in Shropshire), so he is certainly someone who should be remembered amongst the great men of Merthyr.
Scheduled Monuments in Merthyr
I recently received an enquiry asking whether there were any Scheduled Monuments in Merthyr Tydfil. The following is transcribed from Wikipedia:-
Merthyr Tydfil County Borough has 43 scheduled monuments. The prehistoric scheduled sites include many burial cairns and several defensive enclosures. The Roman period is represented by a Roman Road. The medieval periods include two inscribed stones, several house platforms and two castle sites. Finally the modern period has 14 sites, mainly related to Merthyr’s industries, including coal mining, transportation and iron works. Almost all of Merthyr Tydfil was in the historic county of Glamorgan, with several of the northernmost sites having been in Brecknockshire.
Scheduled monuments have statutory protection. The compilation of the list is undertaken by Cadw Welsh Historic Monuments, which is an executive agency of the National Assembly of Wales. The list of scheduled monuments below is supplied by Cadw with additional material from RCAHMW (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales) and Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust.
| Name | Site type | Community | Details | Historic County |
| Gelligaer Standing Stone | Standing stone | Bedlinog | A 2 m (6.6 ft) high stone on open moorland. Probably Bronze Age and with the possible remains of a Bronze Age burial alongside. An inscription on the stone, now mostly illegible, is described as either post-Roman/Early Christian or Early Medieval. | Glamorganshire |
| Coed Cae Round Cairns | Round cairn | Bedlinog | Located in a cairnfield with at least 19 stony mounds, the scheduling consists of a group of eight Bronze Age burial cairns. | Glamorganshire |
| Gelligaer Common Round Cairns | Round cairn | Bedlinog | A group of eleven Bronze Age burial cairns. | Glamorganshire |
| Carn Castell y Meibion ring cairn | Ring cairn | Cyfarthfa
Troed-y-rhiw |
A ring cairn, possibly dating to the Bronze Age, with a 8 m (26 ft) diameter and surrounded by a 3 m (9.8 ft) wide stony ring bank. | Glamorganshire |
| Brynbychan Round Cairn | Round cairn | Merthyr Vale, | A Bronze Age circular cairn with a diameter of 18 m (59 ft). There is an OS triangulation pillar on the site. | Glamorganshire |
| Cefn Merthyr Round Cairns | Cairnfield | Merthyr Vale | Glamorganshire | |
| Morlais Hill ring cairn | Ring cairn | Pant | Glamorganshire | |
| Tir Lan round barrow cemetery | Round barrow | Treharris | The remains of six Bronze Age round barrows, three to the north-west and three to the south-east of Tir Lan farm. All six remain substantially intact despite being reduced by ploughing in the past. | Glamorganshire |
| Garn Las Earthwork | Round cairn | Troed-y-rhiw | The remains a circular burial cairn measuring 14 m (46 ft) in diameter, probably dating to the Bronze Age. | Glamorganshire |
| Merthyr Common Round Cairns | Round cairn | Troed-y-rhiw | A group of six Bronze Age burial cairns ranging from 5 to 19 m (16 to 62 ft) in diameter. | Glamorganshire |
| Carn Ddu platform cairn | Platform Cairn | Vaynor | Glamorganshire | |
| Cefn Cil-Sanws ring cairn | Ring cairn | Vaynor | Glamorganshire | |
| Cefn Cil-Sanws, Cairn on SW side of | Round Cairn | Vaynor | Brecknockshire | |
| Coetgae’r Gwartheg barrow cemetery | Round cairn | Vaynor | Glamorganshire | |
| Garn Pontsticill ring cairn | Ring cairn | Vaynor | Glamorganshire | |
| Dyke 315m E of Tyla-Glas | Ditch | Bedlinog | The remains of a later prehistoric/medieval dyke with a clearly defined bank and ditch running east-west across a ridge top. The 3 m (9.8 ft) wide ditch is 1.5 m (4.9 ft) deep at its east end. | Glamorganshire |
| Cefn Cil-Sanws Defended Enclosure | Enclosure – Defensive | Vaynor | Brecknockshire | |
| Enclosure East of Nant Cwm Moel | Enclosure – Defensive | Vaynor | Glamorganshire | |
| Enclosure on Coedcae’r Ychain | Enclosure – Defensive | Vaynor | Glamorganshire | |
| Gelligaer Common Roman Road | Road | Bedlinog | Glamorganshire | |
| Nant Crew Inscribed Stone (now in St John’s Church, Cefn Coed ) | Standing stone | Vaynor | A 1.5 m (5 ft) high square-sectioned pillar stone thought to date to the Bronze Age. A Latin inscription on the west face and cross incised on the north face are from the 6th and 7th-9th centuries. Holes in the stone indicate that it had been used as a gatepost. | Brecknockshire |
| Platform Houses and Cairn Cemetery on Dinas Noddfa | House platforms (& Cairnfield) | Bedlinog | Medieval house platforms, also prehistoric cairnfield | Glamorganshire |
| Platform Houses on Coly Uchaf | Platform house | Bedlinog | Glamorganshire | |
| Morlais Castle | Castle | Pant | The collapsed remains of a castle begun in 1288 by Gilbert de Clare, Lord of Glamorgan. The walls enclosed an area of approximately 130 by 60 m (430 by 200 ft). It was captured during the 1294-95 rebellion of Madog ap Llywelyn and may have been abandoned shortly afterwards. | Glamorganshire |
| Cae Burdydd Castle | Motte | Vaynor | A 3 m (9.8 ft) high motte and ditch dating to the medieval period. The diameter of 23 m (75 ft) narrows to 9 m (30 ft) at the top. | Brecknockshire |
| Cefn Car settlement | Building (Unclassified) | Vaynor | Glamorganshire | |
| Gurnos Quarry Tramroad & Leat | Industrial monument | Gurnos | Glamorganshire | |
| Sarn Howell Pond and Watercourses | Pond | Town | Glamorganshire | |
| Abercanaid egg-ended boiler | Egg-ended Boiler, re-purposed as garden shed | Troed-y-rhiw | Glamorganshire | |
| Cyfarthfa Canal Level | Canal Level | Cyfarthfa | Glamorganshire | |
| Cyfarthfa Tramroad Section at Heolgerrig | Tramroad | Cyfarthfa | Glamorganshire | |
| Iron Ore Scours and Patch Workings at Winch Fawr, Merthyr Tydfil | Iron mine | Cyfarthfa | Glamorganshire | |
| Ynys Fach Iron Furnaces | Industrial monument | Cyfarthfa | Glamorganshire | |
| Penydarren Tram Road | Trackway | Merthyr Vale | Glamorganshire | |
| Iron Canal Bridge from Rhydycar | Bridge | Park | Glamorganshire | |
| Pont-y-Cafnau tramroad bridge | Bridge | Park | An ironwork bridge spanning the River Taff constructed in 1793. The name, meaning “bridge of troughs”, comes from its unusual three tier design of a tramroad between two watercourses, one beneath the bridge deck and the other on an upper wooden structure which is no longer present. Pont-y-Cafnau is also Grade II* listed. | Glamorganshire |
| Merthyr Tramroad: Morlais Castle section | Tramroad | Pant | Glamorganshire | |
| Merthyr Tramroad Tunnel (Trevithick’s Tunnel) | Tramroad | Troed-y-rhiw | Glamorganshire | |
| Cwmdu Air Shaft & Fan | Air Shaft | Cyfarthfa | Glamorganshire | |
| Remains of Blast Furnaces, Cyfarthfa Ironworks | Blast Furnace | Park | Glamorganshire | |
| Tai Mawr Leat for Cyfarthfa Iron Works | Leat | Park | Glamorganshire | |
| Deserted Iron Mining Village, Ffos-y-fran | Industrial monument | Troed-y-rhiw | Glamorganshire |
Please follow the link below to see the original:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scheduled_monuments_in_Merthyr_Tydfil_County_Borough
Hughesovka: A Welsh Enterprise in Imperial Russia
In light of the terrible situation in Ukraine, the following article is transcribed with the kind permission of Glamorgan Archives:-
John Hughes, an engineer from Merthyr Tydfil, went to Imperial Russia in the 1870s. On the wide empty plains – the steppes – of the southern Ukraine, he set up an ironworks which developed into a huge industrial complex. Around the works grew up a town: Hughesovka.
John Hughes was born in Merthyr Tydfil about 1815. He was the son of an engineer at the Cyfarthfa Ironworks, and started his own career at Cyfarthfa before moving to the Ebbw Vale works, and then on to the Uskside Engineering Works in Newport. By the mid-1860s, John Hughes was a member of the Board of Millwall Engineering and Shipbuilding Company in London, with a world-wide reputation as an engineer.
Hughes came to the attention of the Imperial Russian government, which was anxious to develop its railways and heavy engineering industries. In 1868, he took up a concession from the government and bought land and mineral rights in the Donbass (then southern Russia, now the Ukraine). To finance his project, in 1869 Hughes set up the New Russia Company Ltd., with a capital of £300,000. In 1870 he travelled to the Ukraine to set up the works on the empty steppe.
John Hughes had married Elizabeth Lewis of Newport in 1844, and they had eight children. Four of Hughes’ sons – John James, Arthur David, Ivor Edward and Albert Llewellyn – were closely involved in the running of the works. When John Hughes died in St. Petersburg in 1889, they took over, sharing the responsibilities between them.
John Hughes set up his works on the wide empty steppes of what is now southern Ukraine, but was then part of the Russian Empire. The area was rich in coal and iron ore deposits, but isolated and not industrially developed. Hughes had to start from scratch in 1870, but by the beginning of 1872 the first blast furnace was in production producing iron, and by September 1873 iron rails were being produced. More blast furnaces followed as the works developed, and open hearth furnaces were built in the 1880s to produce steel. By the end of the 1890s, the works was the largest in the Russian Empire, employing 8,000 workers in 1896 and 12,000 in 1904.
Hughes established the works as a self-contained industrial complex. The raw materials for the iron and steel production came from the company’s coal and iron ore mines and limestone quarries; brickworks were set up to supply building materials; repair shops and chemical laboratories serviced the enterprise. In 1919, the works was taken over by the state; it continued in operation and the area remained a major industrial centre.
When Hughes was establishing the works he needed skilled workers, and he recruited many of these in Wales. Some stayed only for a few years, but others settled in Hughesovka, bringing out their wives and families. Over the years, although a Russian workforce was trained by the Company, it continued to employ skilled workers from the United Kingdom. A thriving expatriate community was established, with a school for the British children, an Anglican church, and an English club.
The town of Hughesovka grew up beside the works, with housing provided by the Company to house the British and some of the local workers. The British workers lived in a separate sector, some in substantial houses. By the first decade of the 20th century, the population of Hughesovka was around 50,000, most of them working for or dependent on the works.
Some families stayed in Hughesovka for several generations, their children marrying there and bringing up their own families in the close-knit community. Life could be difficult, with very cold winters and hot summers, and public health problems such as cholera and typhus, but the British families generally enjoyed a good standard of living. In 1896, there were 22 Welsh families living in Hughesovka.
Then in 1917 came the Russian revolution. Most of the British families left Hughesovka and returned home. The works was taken over by the state and Hughesovka was renamed Stalino, and later on Donetsk.
Glamorgan Archives has collected together a large number of records relating to Hughesovka in the Hughesovka Research Archive (HRA). The HRA is a collection of material brought together from a number of different sources, all relating to one theme. It contains papers and photographs deposited by descendents of Hughesovka families, copies of material acquired by the Archives, and material concerning the Hugheosvka-related activities of the Archives. The collection illustrates the achievements of one group of the highly skilled Welsh emigrants who founded and developed industries around the world. It is a useful comparator to other Welsh enterprises abroad – the Welsh colony in Patagonia for example – and an indication of the strength of Welsh industrial enterprise.
The main strength of the collection lies in the light it throws on the members of the expatriate community in Hughesovka, but it also contains material relating to the career of John Hughes, to the New Russia Company and to the works, including some technical information. It is particularly strong in photographic material, including numerous photographs of the town and works, and of the British families.
You can see the Table of Contents of the catalogue of the Hughesovka Research Archive on the Glamorgan Archives website. Note that the table shows main headings only. A complete catalogue can be consulted on the Glamorgan Archives catalogue Canfod.
To view the original article please follow the following link:-
https://glamarchives.wordpress.com/2017/11/03/hughesovka-a-welsh-enterprise-in-imperial-russia/
George Overton, Engineer
I’m sure we’ve all heard of Overton Street in Dowlais, but do we know about the person it was named after? George Overton, engineer, is a person who figures prominently in Merthyr’s History, but about whom very little is known.
Information about George Overton’s early life is very scanty, and sources differ as to his date of birth. Some sources state that he was born on 16 January 1775 at Cleobury Mortimer in Herefordshire (others say he was born in 1774), and the next 20 or so years remain a mystery. In his 1825 publication, A Description of the Faults or Dykes of the Mineral Basin of South Wales (right), however, he would describe himself as a practical man who had made and used tramroads “… during the greater part of the last thirty years … having surveyed and constructed roads of some hundred miles’ extent in different parts of the kingdom …”
By the turn of the 19th Century, he had moved to Merthyr, and worked on the Dowlais Tramroad, connecting the Dowlais Ironworks to the Glamorganshire Canal in about 1791-3. This new 4ft 2in gauge tramroad costing £3,000, allowed horse-drawn wagons moving coal and iron – his scheme enabling each horse to pull 9-10 tonnes going downhill.
Soon after this, Overton was working on the Merthyr Tramroad. Commissioned by the owners of the Dowlais, Penydarren and Plymouth Works to counter the control that Richard Crawshay of Cyfarthfa Ironworks held over use of the canal, the 4ft 2in gauge tramroad was nearly 16km long and ran between Merthyr Tydfil and Abercynon. The tramroad secured its place in history when Richard Trevithick’s steam test took place here in 1804, two years after Overton completed his supervision.
From 1803, Overton had an interest in Hirwaun Ironworks in the Cynon Valley, as a partner in Bowzer, Overton & Oliver. He constructed a tramroad from Hirwaun to Abernant (1806-8), followed by work on the Llwydcoed Tramroad for the Aberdare Canal Company, and Brinore Tramroad.
In 1805 Overton married Mary, and they would go on to have six children.
In 1818 he was consulted by mine owners in County Durham, beginning his involvement in the development of what became the Stockton & Darlington Railway. Two canal schemes had failed to materialise and Overton recommended a horse-drawn tramway. His survey detailed an 82km route that he costed at £124,000, and was the first ever survey for a railway. After difficulties with landowners and re-surveys in 1819 and 1820 to shorten the route, his work was taken forward to Parliament but on the passing of the Bill, steam railway pioneer George Stephenson (1781-1848) took over. Stephenson’s team undertook a new survey and the rest, as they say, is history.
Overton had very definite ideas about tramroads and railways and how to construct them. His design for wooden trams (wagons) was adopted across most of South Wales. His expertise in this field seems to have prevented him from fully appreciating the advantages of steam locomotion “… except in particular instances, and in peculiar situations.” His last project was Rumney Railway, a plateway from Rhymney Ironworks to the Monmouthshire Canal Tramroad near Newport. It opened a year after the Stockton & Darlington Railway.
In 1815 Overton and his family moved to Llandetty near Talybont-on Usk where he died on 2 February 1827.
Fatal Accident at Penydarren
From the Merthyr Telegraph 150 years ago today….
Here is a report of the inquest from the next issue of the Merthyr Telegraph…
Many thanks to Michael Donovan for researching these sad yet fascinating articles.
A Crawshay Tale
From the Cardiff Times 160 years ago today…..
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.
Quarry Row is an offshoot from the road to Jackson’s Bridge. It extended from about Bryant’s Old Brewery premises, almost and occasionally abutting the River Taff. Then came Caepantywyll, and a path by the river led on to the Cyfarthfa Works.
Only a few yards from Bryant’s Brewery there was a passage between the houses for some short distance which thence was an open path up to the Grawen Road. The name of the resident has slipped my memory, but not many houses intervened before an observatory could be seen projecting above the roof, but it was not there as early as the place can be remembered by me. The owner was evidently an astronomer by inclination, though a grocer by trade. Persons by the name of Cornelius had a brewery not far off. The only person that can be called to mind was the Rev W Morris, who was the minister of the chapel in Caepantywyll.
A row of houses with the wall of the Cyfarthfa Works existed close by, and turning up by this wall (leaving the Cyfarthfa Works on the left) we should come out on the Brecon Road. Immediately opposite was a road leading to Gwaelodygarth, the Cyfarthfa Castle Park wall being on the left. We will, however, turn to the right, and return by the Grawen Road. There was a public house on the right, having its back to and overlooking Caepantywyll, kept by a very big man who had travelled as a giant, and there was also a small one who accompanied him as a dwarf.
The Grawen turnpike was nearer to Merthyr, and about there some years kept by Mr Scott was a grocer’s shop. That, during the absence of all the family at divine service, was broken into on a Sunday evening, and although a pretty extensive rummage had been made, the money bag was not discovered. It had been put where thieves would not be very likely to search – in and under the waste paper place of the counter. The time had been selected by those who were well acquainted with the circumstances for it was on a Sunday night following the Saturday’s ‘big draw’.
During the Chartist agitation, a William Gould, who was known as a prominent member, lived in Grawen Road (he too kept a grocer’s shop), and down towards the road was the home of the Evanses of Zoar, who were followed in the same house by the Owens of the same chapel. The brewery on the right, after passing a pond on the right at a lower level than the one on the left, was called Hopkin’s Brewery (it was this that Mr E L Richards was a partner in). Old Mr Hopkins was very fond of riding (he had a splendid jumper I remember).
In a field adjoining, and which was behind the row of houses then called Burnett’s Row on one side and the road to Pontstorehouse on the other, there was a very large block of limestone, which Mr Richards had moved there, and which he said was the fossil of a turtle. It was larger than those at the Zoological Gardens in London. At the end of Burnett’s Row we are at the house the Rev Mr Jones lived in, and we are back where we have already been.
To be continued at a later date…..
A Cyfarthfa Ghost Story
The following article is provided courtesy of ‘The Spooky Isles’ website.
140 years ago today in the August 17th 1881 edition of the Western Mail, the paper’s anonymous but “esteemed correspondent” sent in an “extraordinary narrative” which he “vouched for on the most unimpeachable authority.”
The story concerns the dormant ironworks at Cyfarthfa, Merthyr Tydfil and although the Mail declared its scepticism it published anyway because “the story is a good one.” And it is, very nicely told.
The Ironworks – A Little History
First opened in 1765 by a London merchant, by the 1790s the Cyfarthfa ironworks, under the direction of Richard Crawshay, became one of Britain’s most important iron producers – always handy for a nation almost perpetually at war somewhere in the world and in the midst of the industrial revolution.
The Crawshay family remained in charge, overseeing the works’ slow decline in the face of heavy foreign competition and rising costs. Still a hugely important local employer, profits from the ironworks were used to build William Crawshay II a grand home (Cyfarthfa Castle).
In 1875, the works closed, were re-opened and rebuilt to become a steelworks – a restructure that wasn’t completed until 1884, some time after the Western Mail’s story was published.
The Ghosts of Cyfarthfa Iron Works
The tale’s unnamed narrator begins by mysteriously half-explaining that he and a friend visited the works although why “must remain unexplained” and it was “towards the gloomiest part of the night that we sallied forth, and made our way over tramroads and intricate paths to the scene.”
From here, it’s worth simply quoting the rest of the correspondent’s description in full, reading as it does, like a classic Victorian ghost story a novelist might have conjured up.
“Cyfarthfa Works had been familiar to me for many years, but they were associated with the fullest activity, with the glare of furnaces, the whirl of the rolls; and that picture was vividly in my imagination when we stood at length before the works that were slumbering in thick darkness, and as silent as the grave.
No change could have been greater, no stillness more profound. We were far enough from the town to lose its glare and its noise, and out of the way of the people journeying from one place to another. No place could thus be more isolated, even as no contrast from the wild dash of work to the utter quietude could be more intense.
We stood a while just within the dense shadow of one of the mills, just tracing the ponderous wheels and the dimly outlined rolls when suddenly the two huge wheels creaked and began to revolve, the rolls to move, and in a moment there was all the whirl of industry again, only needing the glare of light and forms of men to assure us that the works were in full action.
My companion, with an exclamation of profound astonishment, clasped me by the arm. Cool, iron man as he is, strong-minded and proof against the superstitions of the age, I felt his voice tremble as he said, ‘This is most strange. There are no men here; the works are stopped; no steam, no motive power.’
And the grip on my arm became severe.
I, too, felt alarmed, and am not ashamed to confess it. My imagination, livelier than that of his, conjured up misty shades, and I saw shapes flitting to and fro, and heard the cry of men and boys amidst the clanging iron. Involuntarily we stepped back into the air, and as suddenly as the medley arose, so it died away; not a wheel moved, all was hushed, and at rest.”
The Old Man
“We walked away a little distance, our purpose unaccomplished, and talked to each other about this extraordinary incident. My friend, better able than I to afford a clue, was, like myself, utterly at sea, and could give no explanation. ‘But,’ said he, resolutely, ‘it must be fathomed, and we will find it out.’
With those words he hurried back to the works. I followed, and in a few minutes again stood looking into the silent mill. There was the same strange hush, the same weird gloom that appeared palpable did we but attempt to grasp it; but no sound.
‘Was it fancy?’ said my friend with his cheerful laugh. He had scarcely spoken when the great wheel again revolved, and machinery here and there, to the right, to the left, ponderous wheels and rolls, all sprang into motion, and the din of work was perfect in its fullness.
With this came the clanging of falling iron, the rattle of trams sounded strangely alike and again the impression was strong that puddlers and moulders flitted by, and ghostly labour went on. This was sufficient for us.
We hurriedly left the scene, and on our way home met one of the old ironworkers of Cyfarthfa to whom my friend related the circumstance. He knew the man as an old and respectable inhabitant, and made no secret of what we had heard.
‘Ha,’ said the veteran, stopping and leaning on his stick, ‘I have heard it too’: and, sinking his voice, he continued, ‘it always comes when the works are stopped.
It did one time before, many years ago, and when Mr Richard [Crawshay, died 1810] was living it came again. No one can say what is the reason, and perhaps it is best not to make any stir about it.’”
To read the original article, and also some other ghostly stories about Merthyr, please visit: