Tag: Cwm-y-Glo Colliery

Notes on the Merthyr Tydfil Tramroads – part 2

by Gwilym and John Griffiths

Cwm Cannaid Tramroad: We do not know when this tramroad was constructed. We would guess it was sometime around 1800-1814. Despite its name, the tramroad was built before the shaft of Cwm Cannaid Colliery was sunk. The track was shown clearly on the 1814 Ordnance Survey Map and on Robert Dawson’s 1832 Boundary Commission Map whereas the shafts of Cwm Cannaid Colliery were apparently sunk about 1845. The purpose of the tramroad was to relieve the inefficient old tub canal, or coal canal, sometimes called the Cyfarthfa Coal Canal, of the 1770s. The latter transported coal (and perhaps ironstone?) in two-ton tubs from levels (some suggested via dangerous leats) in Cwm Cannaid to Cyfarthfa Works: some say horse-drawn, others say hauled or pushed by men and women. The Cyfarthfa Coal Canal was closed around 1835, which gives an explanation of Cwm Cannaid Tramroad on Robert Dawson’s 1832 Boundary Commission Map.

The tramroad followed roughly the route of the old coal canal: the latter a twisting route, the former almost a straight line. It skirted Glyn Dyrys Ironstone Mine, a coal shaft below Lower Colliers Row, in front of Lower Colliers Row itself, Tir Wern Uchaf (where it crossed the canal twice), a link to Cwm y Glo Colliery and Ironstone Mine, Upper Colliers Row, Tir Heol Gerrig and hence to the coke ovens and yards above (to the west) of Cyfarthfa Works.

Lower Colliers Row. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

When Cwm Cannaid Pit was sunk in 1845, that became the terminus of the system. The 1901 Ordnance Survey Map named it ‘Cwm Pit Railway’, and the line linking it to ‘Gethin Railway’ was labelled ‘railway in course of construction’. We saw the remnants of these mines, canal and tramroad in the 1940s and 1950s, and often walked the old canal embankment, by then well wooded.

A section of the 1901 Ordnance Survey Map showing the tramroad marked as ‘Cwm Pit Railway’. Lower Colliers Row and the old Cyfarthfa Canal are also shown.

Again, industrial despoliation was reverting to nature: delicious wild strawberries on the old waste tipping, a nightingale singing by the disused and reed-covered canal reservoir, woodcock and common snipe, pied flycatchers and wood warblers, and numerous other birds; with wild orchids amongst the damp marshy vegetation with dragon-flies, damsel-flies, glow-worms and water-boatmen. We doubt if this still exists in the coniferous plantations which replaced them all in more recent years.

Dowlais Tramroad: This was constructed about 1792-93 to connect Dowlais Works with Pont y Storehouse near the Glamorgan Canal terminus, roughly near present-day Jackson’s Bridge. It gave Dowlais Works access to the then ‘recently’ constructed Glamorgan Canal. The route may well have followed initially the Morlais Quarry Tramroad from Dowlais via Gelli Faelog, keeping to the Gelli Faelog side of Nant Morlais. The 1793 extension from this tramroad is today represented by the main road and high pavement from Trevithick Street down to Pont Morlais and thence via the tunnel, formerly a bridge, into Bethesda Street to Jackson’s Bridge. Did the Glamorgan Canal Company pay the £1,100 for the construction of the tramroad (and Jackson’s Bridge) in lieu of the proposed linking canal from Merthyr Tudful to Dowlais?

Bethesda Street in the 1950s. The car is parked on what was the where tramway exited the tunnel mentioned above and continued to the Glamorganshire Canal at Pontstorehouse. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

Gethin Tramroad: This tramroad or railway linked Gethin Colliery (sunk between 1845 and 1849 and opened 1849) initially, and Castle Colliery later (1860s?), with Cyfarthfa Works, taking a route in between those of Cwm Cannaid Tramroad and Ynys Fach Tramroad. No tramroad was shown on the 1850 Tithe Map and Schedule. By 1886 the track left Castle Colliery, skirted the hillside west of the Glamorgan Canal between Furnace Row and Tir Pen Rhiw’r Onnen, through Gethin Colliery (with a link to pit-shaft No2), past Graig Cottage and a bridge over Nant Cannaid. At (the 1853) Cyfarthfa Crossing it curved northwestwards past Tir Wern Isaf and Tir Llwyn Celyn, looping under the 1868 Brecon and Merthyr Railway near Heol Gerrig, and thence to the coke yards.

Gethin Colliery. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive.

By 1886 the route was upgraded to the GWR and Rhymney Railway as far as the Cyfarthfa Crossing. The 1876 six-inch Ordnance Survey Map showed the terminus for the ‘cwbs’ at the rear of Cyfarthfa Works. The 1901 Ordnance Survey Map called it ‘Gethin Railway’. Our grandfather used the railway to get to work at Castle Colliery, and we regularly used this route (then upgraded to a full railway) in the 1940s and 1950s on our daily journeys to and from school at Quakers Yard. One of us was on the last train to use this line before the viaduct between Quakers yard and Pont y Gwaith was found to be unsafe.

Gyrnos Quarry Tramroad: This was used to bring limestone from Gyrnos Quarry (Graig y Gyrnos) alongside Tâf Fechan, past the limekilns and coal yards, over Afon Tâf by Pont Cafnau to Cyfarthfa Works. We have no details of dates, but walked the route many times in the 1950s in search of dippers, kingfishers, grey wagtails and the rest. It was the first tramroad recorded in the 1805 list of John Jones and William Llywelyn: 1 mile 106 yards to Cyfarthfa Furnaces and just over 1¾ miles to the new Ynys Fach Furnaces. In view of the size of the quarry, it must have transported many tons of material.

Pont-y-Cafnau in March 2017

Notes on the Merthyr Tydfil Tramroads – part 1

by Gwilym and John Griffiths

 TRAMROAD: According to the Oxford Concise English Dictionary, ‘tramroad’ is now an historical word: a road with wooden, stone or metal wheel-tracks; a ‘tramway’. Strictly speaking, ‘tramroad’ should be written ‘tram-road’ with a hyphen, but the spelling variation ‘tramroad’ has been used commonly in this district.  There were many tramroads constructed in this valley in so-called ‘historical’ times, though we can still recall many of them very well indeed and had much fun in our youth having rides on the trams.

Blaen Cannaid Tramroad: This tramroad linked several of the ironstone and coal levels, as well as later mines and collieries, in the hamlet of Gelli Deg to Cyfarthfa Works. The tramroad started at some ironstone levels about 900-1,000 feet above sea-level near Blaen Cannaid, not far from the site of the sixteenth century iron bloomery or small furnace. The route of the tramroad went between Pen y Cae and Pen y Coedcae, crossing the (unnamed?) stream which fed the small reservoir near Lower Colliers Row; and thence over Nant Cwm y Glo to Cwm y Glo Colliery and Ironstone Mine.

Cwm y Glo Colliery. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

Thereafter it continued northwards to Coedcae Ironstone Mine, over Nant Cwm Pant Bach, across the road Heol Gerrig, linking with Cwm Cannaid Tramroad at the coke yards behind the furnaces at Cyfarthfa Works. We often walked the area in the 1940s and 1950s but recall nothing of note: merely grassed-over waste tipping, etc. What a pity?

Clyn Mil Tramroad: This tramroad went from Plymouth Works up the steep Clyn Mil Incline to the east, past Prospect House (where some distant cousins of ours, the Coles, lived in the 1940s) and Tir Clyn Mil Uchaf and its lime kiln (where our great-great grandparents, David and Mary Morgan, lived and died), and then turning south towards Clyn Mil Colliery and Ironstone Mine.

Prospect House. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

One link from the tramroad deviated further up the mountainside via Coedcae and the Clyn Mil Inclined Plane to several ‘unnamed’ ironstone levels and southwards to waste tipping on Gwern Las land. Another link went to ‘Waun’ Coal Level on Gwern Las property. Another link went to a clay pit on the south side of Clyn Mil Pond and another tramroad linked northwards to ‘New’ Pit (one shaft for coal and another for ironstone) close to Tir Cwm ‘Blacks’ and then on to the brickworks at Tre Beddau.

A very extensive network of lesser roads, some only temporary, covered the higher part of Tir Clyn Mil and Tir Wern Las and these were used either for transporting ironstone or waste tipping. We have no idea as to dates or any other details, but walked all of these routes on numerous occasions, long after the tramroad lines had been removed, in the 1940s and 1950s. It was a barren area then, with industry all gone, but the despoliation was gradually returning to nature again. Here were the homes of redstarts, wood warblers, even wood larks, with skylarks, meadow pipits and cuckoos towards the higher moorland portions. There is surprisingly little information in print about the Plymouth Works as far as we can trace.

To be continued….