by Alison Davies
At the far end of Vaynor, just inside the neighbouring parish of Llandetty, stood the pretty church of St Agnes known as Taff Fechan or Dolygaer Church.
Built in the 1470s, almost 400 years later it was extensively rebuilt in the 1860s. The graveyard was also extended after land was gifted by churchwarden, William Williams, Wernddu, and, a new vicarage also built.
This was a time of immense change in the valley, the building of the Pentwyn Reservoir (Dolygaer Lake) and the construction of the Brecon to Merthyr Railway brought hundreds of day trippers to picnic swim or sail around the lake in Mr Atkins’s steam powered boat.
Then, in 1925, with the added need for clean water, all changed.
The church, its vicarage, the neighbouring Bethlehem Chapel built 1828 and several houses and farms were all demolished for the flooding of the valley, and the building of the Taf Fechan Reservoir that we know today.
The picturesque church with its historic foundations was gone, and, the sacred remains of 445 men, women, children and babies were removed from the graveyard. A further 73 were also removed from Bethlehem Chapel graveyard.
A valley of memories, submerged beneath the lapping waters. Then, every so often, in hot weather, the drought beats the waters retreat, and the archway of Bethlehem Chapel freely emerges from the depths.
At Taf Fechan Church generations of families from the area such as William and Margaret Edward, their sons, Thomas aged 7 days, and, Morgan 2 years, were all removed from their resting place.
Some unknown graves, whose identity was quietly recorded by an unmarked stone, a simple row of river cobbles or a parting in the grass where someone had once sat and grieved. Now, their identity gone, their history lost, they were simply marked as ‘person’ ’child’ and ‘infant’.
Most, including, those both known and unknown, were re-interred at the new burial ground at Pontsticill.
They included 26-year old Sarah Jones from Dowlais and her new born daughter Margery who died Sept 1841, also 71-year old station master Charles Mallet who had worked Torpantau Station for over 45 years, died 1910, or Farmer David Lewis died 1891 Cwm Carr.
Others, such as the ancient Watkins family of Blaencallan, or Rhiwyrychain, and, one of the earliest recorded families in the Dolygaer valley, were reburied at Vaynor and Llandetty Churches.
A new church was opened in 1927 on the embankment above the Dolygaer and a new chapel built in Pontsticill; both are now privately owned.
To see more of Alison’s fantastic research about Pontsarn and Vaynor, please follow this link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/747174317220437
