In Association with the Merthyr Tydfil & District Historical Society
The Merthyr Tydfil Historical Society is pleased to announce that, after 18 months of disruption due to Covid, their lecture programme is due resume next month.
The first lecture will be at 2.00pm on Monday 6 September at Canolfan Soar, and the subject will be Morlais Castle.
Below is the full list of lectures for the rest of the year (fingers crossed). All members who paid their membership fee in 2020 will automatically have it carried forward to this year.
Everyone is welcome.
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:
by Malcolm Llywelyn
The distinction of the Freedom of the Borough of Merthyr Tydfil dates from 1907 when David Alfred Thomas, member of parliament for the town was the first recipient of the honour. It is a distinction conferred on those have rendered a valuable service to the Borough of Merthyr Tydfil. A viscount, a baronet, prime ministers, politicians, sportsmen and businessmen have been among those who have been awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Merthyr Tydfil.
In 1974, Stanley Beynon J.P. was honoured with the Freedom of the Borough of his home town. He lived in a council house in Penydarren and he worked as a miner and then a school caretaker until his retirement. He was an active member of Nantwen Pit Lodge and the chairman on two occasions during his employment in the mining industry. Stanley Beynon was general secretary of the Merthyr Tydfil Trades Council and the Labour Party in 1930 until his retirement from office in 1968. In 1932, he was parliamentary agent to Mr. R.C. Wallhead M.P. and held the same position for his close friend Mr. S.O. Davies M.P. for over 30 years. He also fulfilled the role of Justice of the Peace from 1934. In 1953, Stanley Beynon was awarded the Trades Union Congress Silver Medal of Merit for his long and dedicated service to the Trade Union Movement.
“Man of the people,” Stanley Beynon was a counsellor, an advocate and facilitator for those in need in his community.
The admission of Mr. Stanley Beynon J.P. as an Honorary Freeman of the County Borough of Merthyr Tydfil on 22nd March 1974 was conferred on him with the following words:
“In Mr. Stanley Beynon the Council recognise a person who has made a notable contribution to the trade union and political life of the County Borough of Merthyr Tydfil over a period of almost forty years.”
From The Evening Express 120 years ago today…..
by Laura Bray
It was Tuesday 6 August 1901 – 120 years ago today. The weather was undecided, threatening rain but holding off. The town was looking festive, with banners and streamers hung across the High Street, coloured lights put up around the Castle Hotel door, hotels gaily festooned with paper flowers and even houses decorated to catch the eye. The train station was busy all day, carrying people to Merthyr from all over, and 18,000 people made their way to the magnificent Pavilion in Penydarren Park, for the opening of the 1901 Eisteddfod.
The planning for the Eisteddfod had begun in February 1899 when a sub-committee of the Cymmrodorion Society, who were meeting in a care-takers room in the Town Hall, were discussing the Dewi Sant banquet and it was suggested that the National Eisteddfod might be invited to Merthyr in 1901 or 1903. The idea caught on, was discussed by “The Great and the Good” of Merthyr society and by 14 June 1899 it had been unanimously agreed that an application would be made to the Gorsedd Committee for either 1901 or 1903. The invitation for the Eisteddfod to come to Merthyr was accepted for 1901 and fundraising commenced apace. Some members of the committee had been part of the 1881 Eisteddfod, the last time it had come to the town, others were new and all came to together to decide that the Penydarren Park site, used in 1881, would again be ideal for the 1901 event.
The Penydarren Park site was, in 1901 as in 1881, a large open field with plenty of room for the Pavilion and space for the crowds outside the barriers so that the streets did not become too busy at the entrances. A refreshment tent was set up, a fruit stall and adjacent to that, a Post Office. Everyone wanted to come and by the time the Eisteddfod opened before midday it was packed, and by the afternoon, there was standing room only. The band played and the mornings proceedings were chaired by the Lord Tredegar, and conducted by “Gurnos” (Gurnos Jones) and “Mabon” (Abraham Williams).
The event spanned the week and was a great success. On the final Saturday, the sun shone and the Archdruid conferred Druidic degrees on the Rev Dr Rowlands, America; the Rev David Owen, Llanfair Muallt; Miss Annie Rees M.D., New York; Miss S.M Lewis, Dr. Hughes, Dowlais and others. The next Eisteddfod, to be held in Bangor, was also proclaimed. Merthyr did itself proud with prizes – Miss Edith Matthews won £2 for the best paper on counterpoint and harmony in four parts; Tom Price won £3/3- for the best oboe solo; Harry Llewellyn won £3 for the cornet solo, and came second in the bass solo; The Merthyr Orchestral Society won the prize of £40. In the Arts and industries section, Zechariah Watkins from Dowlais won the prize for a set of six panels imitating marbles; J Westacott from Merthyr won the best painted and varnished door and David Thomas in Merthyr the prize for one white shawl.
“Dyfed” (Evan Rees from Aberdare ) was chaired as Bard, having already won five National Chairs, including that of the Chicago Eisteddfod. The Crown went to John Jenkins of Gwili
What was interesting about the Eisteddfod was the huge coverage it received from the Press – way beyond anything you would get today – and the distances people travelled to attend. Hotels in Merthyr were booked up well in advance and there are reports of visitors from as far afield as America. Ticket sales alone brought in £3343 10s 9d and subscriptions another £1100. The cost to the town of hosting it was calculated at £4200, which meant that there was a surplus of £843 10s 9d – around £106,000 in today’s money – no mean achievement. This was the last time the National Eisteddfod came to Merthyr (although the Urdd Eisteddfod came in 1987). Perhaps we are due another visit!
I would like to congratulate Victoria Owens, a regular contributor to this blog, who has won the Literature Wales Creative Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award for her excellent book on Lady Charlotte Guest – Lady Charlotte Guest: The Exceptional Life of a Female Industrialist.
The award is well deserved, as the book is exceptionally well researched and brilliantly written.
Well done Victoria!!!!
by Barrie Jones
Born in Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire, it is not surprising that his memorial stone is inscribed in Welsh. On the stone is a verse in keeping with many Welsh headstones and is a Welsh type known as englyn. The verse describes John as a fond husband, a loving father, both willing and generous and that there has never been a man on earth with his healthy vigour, nor more genial.
At the time of taking on the licence, John Lewis may already have ‘retired’ from puddling, the Cyfarthfa Works was closed from 1874 until 1879 and this interval may have marked his ‘retirement’. More so because after such a long layoff the exacting work that puddling entailed would prevent a return to work for a man of his age. Charles Russell James recalled:
“puddlers in front of the huge furnaces plying their long puddling bars before fires that would roast an ox. To protect their bodies they wore long leathern aprons. The work was most exhausting. They did not live to be old men. They got shrivelled up at a comparatively early age, and often took to drinking beer heavily. No wonder poor fellows, for their thirst must have been a consuming one. They got heavy wages, but no wage can compensate for that class of killing work”.
Puddling was dangerous work, for example, Gabriel, one of John’s sons was forced to seek temporary parish relief for himself, his wife and four children in 1897 because of burns suffered at work.
Through his work, John would have been well acquainted with the beer trade, and the reopening of the Cyfarthfa Works in 1879 would have been a welcome boost to those inns near the works. John’s entrance into the beer trade and, the expansion of the inn, may have been prompted by the Work’s reopening. The iron masters appreciated from an early stage that their workers could not stand the hot, dusty and fume filled atmosphere of the works without regular intake of water. Beer offered the safest alternative to water and the works purchased beer from the nearby pubs on a contract basis for special exertions. When ‘encouragement’ was needed for special exertions beer notes were written by departmental managers, so that the beer could be brought into the works for the men or could be collected by them when they went home. In addition, public houses formed a useful gathering point for workers at the end of their shifts and especially those inns where gang masters paid their gangs their weekly wages.
John had a relatively short-lived career as a publican, no more than a decade. It would seem that the driving force at the Castle Inn was his son Samuel. Joan, John’s widow, moved out of the inn and Samuel became the full time landlord. During this early period Samuel’s sister Catherine and her husband Alfred Parry assisted him. Alfred was no stranger to the licensing trade; his late father Lewis Benjamin Parry was formally landlord of the Black Lion, Picton Street.
Samuel married Diana Smith in 1902 and continued to manage the inn for the next twenty years.
Samuel gave up the licensing trade in March 1915, with the transfer of the Inn’s licence to George Rees. Samuel had then moved to number 20 Gate Street. At the time of his death in March 1933, he was living at number 12 Dixon Street and working at the Dowlais Works. Samuel had inherited his father’s geniality; during his time as a landlord he had established himself within the community and must have been an active and well-liked personality, as testified by his obituary in the Merthyr Express:
“It is with deep regret we have to record the death of Mr. S. Lewis late of the Castle Inn, Caepantywyll, at the age of 57. Working at Dowlais Works, he collapsed at his work last Thursday leaving his home at 12 Dixon Street in his usual good spirits. It came as a great shock to his sons, daughters, relatives and friends. A great sportsman in past years and well known throughout Merthyr, the deceased was a widower of the late Mrs. Diana Lewis”.
It seems fitting that Samuel had returned to the industry that had helped prosper his father and his older brothers for so many decades and to what was then the last iron and steel works in Merthyr Tydfil.
It’s uncertain when the ‘old’ inn was demolished and the larger ‘new’ inn built in its place. The rebuild may have taken place just after Samuel’s retirement in 1915. George Rees was the licencee throughout and after the First World War, and by the onset of the Second World War the licencee was Arthur Charles Sussex.
by Barrie Jones
Caepantywyll lies north of Jackson’s Bridge, occupying a narrow strip of river terrace sandwiched between the river Taff to the west and the rising high ground of the Grawen and Tydfil’s Well to the east. Once a field belonging to Gwaelod-y-garth farm; “the field of the dark hollow”, now, the area has a scattering of modern residential properties. It is difficult to imagine that fifty years ago this was a thriving community of terraced houses, chapel, shops and public houses.
The only building that survived the slum clearance programme of the early 1980s was the Castle Inn. This imposing building is situated at the bottom of what was Gate Street, now a steep lane that rises up to the Grawen. By the time of the area’s clearance the inn was a doss house lodging such old characters as Old Phil and Bill Baldy. Later the building was converted into a five bedroom house, whilst retaining the original façade and pub name. The building’s renovation rescued it from inevitable deterioration over the passing years and its likely demolition.
However, many may not know that this building stands on the site of a smaller and less imposing public house, numbers 1 & 2 Gate Street, also named the Castle Inn, but known in the locality as the “Tavern Twll”.
The “Tavern Twll” came late to Caepantywyll, the 1861 census shows that number 2 Gate Street was an ordinary residence occupied by Elizabeth Evans, a widow aged seventy two years old and describing herself as a housekeeper. Sometime after, a new occupier Thomas Morgan had renamed the property as the Castle. In the 1871 census he is described as an engine fitter and publican, indicating the part time nature of this new occupation and how small the public house was, a typical cwrw bach or pot house. By March 1880 Elizabeth Bowen had taken over the tenancy after obtaining a transfer of the licence to sell alcohol. As a widow, aged fifty two years, and with six children, this must have been a much needed source of income for her family.
In the next decade the property had been extended by incorporating number 1 Gate Street whilst retaining the name “the Castle”. Also, a new landlord, John Lewis who previously lived at number 13 Gate Street had acquired the tenancy which, he and his family were to hold for the next three decades. Mrs Bowen the previous licensee had moved up the hill to number 11 Gate Street.
John Lewis died on the 17th June 1895 and was buried at Cefn Coed Cemetery. At that time sixty four years old may be considered a good age for an innkeeper to live. Especially, considering that before becoming the licensee of the Castle Inn, he had led the harsher and harder working life of an iron puddler.
To be continued…….
From the Merthyr Express 100 years ago today…..
