by Carolyn Jacob
James Roberts, a freeholder and a dissenter opened the Crown Inn as one of his many business activities. In his book, ‘The Labyrinth of Flames’, Chris Evans writes that in the early 1790s the ironmasters hoped to install a landlord of their own choosing at the Crown Inn “as a competitor to Peggy Jenkins, the doughty if slapdash matriarch who ran the Star Inn. Each Company pledged £70 to their nominee, but little more was heard of the proposal thereafter.”
The Crown Inn is situated at number 28 on the Lower High Street, in the old ‘Village’ area of Merthyr Tydfil and dates from 1785, although there have been later alterations to the inn. It is a grade II listed building. The Crown Inn was built on the site of an earlier thatched property and was fully licensed to let post horses in the nineteenth century. The building has a simple 2 storey Georgian front with some interesting old features and is a fine example of a late 18th century coaching inn. The Crown is contemporary with the time of Anthony Bacon, the first ironmaster. Following the building of the Cyfarthfa Ironworks visitors started to come to Merthyr Tydfil and the Crown provided essential refreshment and accommodation.
Before 1800 the first post-office was at the Crown Inn. An old woman brought letters from Brecon and these were put on a round table ready to be collected. Despite having undergone many changes, the building still retains many original features, such as the iron gates and carriage arch to the right hand side of the building leading to a cobbled courtyard where coaches from Cardigan were berthed.
The Merthyr Express of 28 July 1866 tells a tale of a traveller in the year 1806. He put up at the best hotel then, the Crown. He well remembered being taken by a friend to see the Castle Hotel, which was then in course of building.
One sunny afternoon, towards the close of the eighteenth century, two suspicions-looking travellers rode down through Twvnyrodyn, then the direct-road from Cardiff, passed the Court House and entered the village. They dismounted and entered the Crown Hotel. ‘In the queer old hostelry, then the principle inn, or at least equal rival to the Star’. The travellers were no other than the press gang, as Merthyr men would soon know to their cost. Coming at such a time the rumour about them spread quickly, terrified children hid them and one young fellow found a refuge in a large chimney at the Blast Furnace public-house. Never had such an alarm been caused before. A veritable panic seemed to have seized everybody, and the most ludicrous actions ensued to avoid these men. While all this commotion was going on in the little village the two travellers sat in the parlour quite at their ease and enjoyed the Crown’s best ale.
The Crown was a popular public house in nineteenth century Merthyr Tydfil and on Saturdays it was not unusual for a crowd of men to come out of the Crown or Star and for 2 of them to strip to the waist in order to have a public fight. Before the Glamorgan Constabulary was established there was only a village constable and he wisely kept well out of these occasions.
In the first half of the nineteenth century the market was outside the Crown Inn. The shops were crowded with customers and the fairs and markets were held in the open streets extending from the churchyard wall upwards, temporary stalls were erected along a poorly constructed pavement and the public highway itself was invaded by hand-barrows, baskets and panniers. These stalls sold clothes, boots, shoes, jewellery, gingerbread, sweets, Welsh flannels and so on. The butchering trade had its own area and small market in a side street.
In 1835 Pigot’s directory gives John Richards as the Inn Keeper of the Crown Inn and on the 1841 census Margaret Richards was the landlady living in the Crown with her daughters, Mary and Jane. In 1852 Slater’s directory lists Howell Davies as landlord.
In the mid nineteenth century the Crown was the most popular location for Friendly Societies to meet. Amongst those that met there were The Social Society, The Society of Gentleman, Tradesman and Mechanics, The Cambrian Friendly Society, The Star Brotherly Society and the Faithful Youths’ Society, according to the Merthyr Telegraph, Registered Friendly Societies, 26 September 1857.
A directory from 1889 shows John Davies to be the landlord here. The 1901 register of electors reveals that David Francis Williams lived in the Crown Inn. A trade directory of 1923 shows that D. Williams was still the Crown’s landlord at this time.
