Penydarren Ironworks – The Melting Pot – Merthyr Tydfil's History and Culture

Dan y Castle Farm

by Alison Davies

With the proposed water treatment works at Dan y Castle Farm I have been inundated with messages asking for the history of the farm.

Dan y Castle , Llwyn Molgoch.

Dan y Castle Farm – or, to give it, its original name Llwyn Molgoch is a farmstead below Pontsarn Road, it nestles in the summer shadows, southwest of the Brynar and Morlais Castle hill.

With the building of a new road alongside the heads of the valleys, the land it is now visible from the roadside.

The site of the farm with Morlais Castle to the right

There has been a farmstead on this site since at least the 1500s, with earliest records naming it as Tir Llwyn Molgoch as part of the original Tir y Gyrnos Farm in 1640s with it eventually being sold in the early 1700s.

The original name Llwyn Molgoch was translated as ‘Bush of the red summit’, by Charles Wilkins, 1904.

Wilkins wrote, that, ‘tradition at the farm was, that Molgoch was a warrior, who, when escaping his enemies, sort shelter in a bush, where he was captured and killed’.

While, John Griffiths, writing about The Farms in the Merthyr Valley in 2011 gave two possible explanations, one, of Molgoch as, either, meaning’ Red Hill’ or secondly ‘the farm at ‘Molgoch Grove’ where he gives Molgoch as a name, or nickname. Griffiths further questioned, that, in some Welsh directories Moloch meant terror or dread.

There are a variety of spelling variations for Llwyn molgoch.

Lloyne moyle Goch – 1756 Gyrnos sale

Llwynmoelgoch – 1839 Merthyr Telegraph.

Glamol Yoch – 1850s Tithe map.

While, I am neither able to prove, or disprove its early origins, we will look at its significance and growth as one of the most important estate farm lands throughout the 1800s in Merthyr, and, how it became an integral piece of Merthyr’s history.

By the early 1800s Llwyn Molgoch had been separated from the original Gyrnos farm and was now part of the Penydarren Ironworks Estate land.

It was here at Llwyn Molgoch on May 13th 1813 that David Davies was born. He would grow up to be one of the most influential businessmen in 19th century South Wales.

While of interest is that his father, Thomas, rolled the first Iron rail at the Penydarren Ironworks and in South Wales.

David began work at Penydarren iron works firstly as a door boy at a young age, then training as a cutter man. Through his skill as a cutter, he was noted to have improved the manufacture of nail iron at Penydarren.

David left Penydarren works to take on the College Lock Ironworks in Llandaff, Cardiff.

By the early 1860s, he had then become the general manager at Gadlys Ironworks until 1863, when, he was drawn back to his native Merthyr. With his business partner, Thomas Williams he purchased the Penydarren estate and its works where he lived until 1884. From there, he became a partner, and later sole proprietor of the famous Beaufort Tinplate Company in Morriston, and Alderman, JP Swansea.

David Davis died September 1894 aged 81 years. The newspapers of the day ran extensive tributes to his achievements.

He is buried alongside his first wife in Cefn Cemetery.

By the 1830s Llwyn Molgoch was now in the ownership of the Crawshay family, and part the Cyfarthfa Estate. In the farmhouse where David Davies was born, now lived one of the first gamekeepers to the Crawshay family Thomas Havard who later moved to the newly built Gurnos Model Farm.

A succession of gamekeepers went on to live at Llwyn Molgoch. There was an ongoing problem with poaching on the Cyfarthfa Estate. From the front door, just two fields away, stood a folly, a stone tower known as the ‘keepers Tower’. It still stands today but is now surrounded by houses in New Gurnos, near to Pen y Dre School.

From this tower the gamekeepers would patiently wait for the poachers and their dogs, this elevated view allowed the gamekeepers to track the poachers across the land. Looking at Ariel photos today you can still see a well-trodden pathway leading from Llwyn Molgoch to the tower.

The land here is a pre industrial landscape undeveloped.

The history of the Cyfarthfa Estate is too important to be brushed aside, too important to be ignored, forgotten and built over. The act of preserving or preservation isn’t for the here and now . It’s for the future, a gift of preservation of our heritage for a generation or generations to come.

In 2025 , to mark the 200th year of Cyfarthfa Castle, Merthyr Historical Society and Cyfarthfa Castle produced a book called Cyfarthfa Castle and Park 1825 -2025. A people’s History. Here on page 41 is an article by Christine Trevett. This article, titled Class, clashes and Crawshay Land. The article formally acknowledges the history, and the importance of the Cyfarthfa estate and its lands. It was chosen, I’m sure by the author for its weight of significance.

In writing about it, she shows how very important this landscape is.

Now acknowledged in print, its history stands for the future. Its future should be preserved, therefore, now is the time, time for, Merthyr Historical Society, Cyfarthfa Castle, Cyfarthfa Foundation and Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council to stand up for our history, and Heritage.

To see more of Alison’s fantastic research about Pontsarn and Vaynor, please follow this link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/747174317220437

Clifton Suspension Bridge and Dowlais Iron Company

by Victoria Owens

The following article is transcribed here with the permission of the Clifton Suspension Bridge & Museum official blog.

Since the Dowlais Iron Company made the iron that was used to forge the original chains, their importance to the Clifton Suspension Bridge was significant. The village of Dowlais itself is located on the fringes of Merthyr Tydfil and the Iron Company was established in 1759, when a group of nine gentlemen signed Articles of co-partnership in what they termed ‘Merthir Furnace’. By the 1840s, under the management of John – later Sir John – Guest, it was supplying iron rail to railway companies across the world. In time, Dowlais eclipsed the other Merthyr ironworks – Penydarren, Cyfarthfa and Plymouth – to become a vast concern; by 1853, when Guest’s widow Lady Charlotte headed the company, it had no few than eighteen furnaces in blast. The association with Clifton began a decade earlier in 1840 when Dowlais contracted to supply iron to the Copperhouse Foundry in the Cornish town of Hayle to be forged into eye-bar chains, that is, chains made up of bars with eye-plates at either end. A number of letters from John Poole on behalf of the Copperhouse Company, also known as Sandys, Carne and Vivian, to the Dowlais Iron Company – it also traded as Guest, Lewis & Co – survive which give some idea of the problems to which the contract gave rise.

On 15 August 1839, Poole wrote in confidence to Guest’s onsite manager, Thomas Evans. He wished to ascertain the prices ‘for Iron of the best quality’ that Dowlais could supply, and how soon Dowlais could provide it. Evidently Poole found the figures which Evans quoted acceptable, and fifteen months later, on 14 November 1840, he wrote again to Guest, Lewis & Co, demanding to know when they could make ’80 to 100 Tons of the Bars for the Clifton Bridge’ available at the Cardiff docks for shipping to Hayle. In bar form, the iron was not only convenient for transportation, but also ready to be worked into the finished product – in this instance, suspension chains.

At some point in the winter of 1840-41, Dowlais duly despatched a consignment of bar iron to Hayle where Brunel, always the perfectionist, sent one of his staff – a man named Charles Gainsford – to assess its quality. Having tested the iron, not only did Gainsford think it unfit for purpose, but also suspected Dowlais of having double-crossed Copperhouse. ‘We regret,’ John Pool informed the Dowlais management on 13 February 1841 ‘that [Gainsford] will allow us to use no part of the iron invoiced the 8th December last, which he says is not of best cable quality, & which he requested should not be forwarded to us when he visited the Dowlais Works. It is a great disappointment to us,’ he continues, that the Iron has not been made agreeably to the Order, and we fear the delay may subject us to a heavy loss. We hope the present shipment will be of the proper quality.’

Photo courtesy of the Clifton Suspension Bridge and Museum

It is a shocking indictment of procedures at Dowlais yet, surprising as it may seem, Poole’s aggrieved tone failed to bring about any improvement. Crucially, the iron bars from which the sections of chain were to be made up necessarily had to be straight. On 15 March 1841, Poole vented his growing impatience with Dowlais’s apparent failure to grasp this requirement in another letter of complaint. ‘Even a large portion of the Bars for the Clifton Bridge already received,’ he wrote, ‘must be heated all over to be made perfectly straight.’ He ordered them to send no more bars, other ‘than what may be inspected & approved by Mr Brunel’s representative at the works.’

By the end of March 1841, Poole’s forbearance was exhausted. Another consignment of faulty iron bars had reached him and, in considerable annoyance, he wrote at once to Thomas Evans. ‘We are exceedingly sorry,’ he protested, ‘that a large portion of the bars for the Clifton Bridge […] are so crooked as to entail upon us more labour to straighten them than ever upon welding on the eyes. […] Will you be good enough to inform us whether you are likely to have a further lot of bars shortly fit for use? It seems likely that, having received this missive, Evans read the Riot Act to the Dowlais workforce with the result that the quality of iron which they supplied to Copperhouse improved. Before long, Hayle was able to supply Clifton with satisfactory elements of the chains for the bridge ready for onsite assembly.

But by 1842, the Suspension Bridge trustees had run acutely short of money. Already £2,885 12s 1d was owing to Copperhouse and even by 1845 they had not been paid. Three years later, in 1848, so desperate for payment were the Hayle company that they were willing to accept £2780 12s 7d in return for quick settlement of their account. In the event, they were not paid until 1849, and only then after the despairing bridge trustees had taken out a loan for the purpose. In the town of Hayle, people evidently regarded this long-overdue settlement of the Clifton account as a significant landmark. The name of ‘Riviere Terrace’ which was a street of imposing houses built in 1840 changed to ‘Clifton Terrace’ by way of marking completion of the Cornish Copper Company’s contract. As for the chains themselves, when lack of funds halted work on the suspension bridge, the Cornwall Railway purchased them for incorporation within the Royal Albert Bridge at Saltash.

Yet although the lack of money brought work on the suspension bridge to a temporary halt before Hawkshaw and Barlow completed its construction to a much-revised version of Brunel’s design, the association with Dowlais did not entirely evaporate. The Dowlais Iron Company had provided the original iron used in the old Hungerford Bridge whose chains Hawkshaw and Barlow adopted for their bridge, supplemented by a large volume of new links purchased from the Lord Ward Round Oak works in Dudley. If the association between the Dowlais Iron Company, the Copperhouse Foundry of Hayle and the Trustees of the Clifton Suspension Bridge was less than harmonious, it is nevertheless intriguing to witness the frustrations and stalling that could bedevil even the most celebrated of Victorian construction projects.

Please follow the link below to see the original article. https://cliftonbridge.org.uk/clifton-suspension-bridge-and-dowlais-iron-company/

The South Wales Lock Out

The article transcribed below appeared in the Illustrated London News 150 years ago today.

Several fresh illustrations are given this week, from sketches by our own artists, of the deplorable stoppage of labour in the vast collieries and ironworks of South Wales. The amount of interests involved in this unfortunate rupture between capital and labour is estimated by the correspondent of a daily paper:—

“In Monmouthshire and Glamorgan there are, all told, 450 collieries, of which about 150 are the property of ironmasters. In times when business is at full swing, the amount of coal ‘won’ from these numerous pits reaches 350,000 tons weekly. The manufacture of iron in the district demands 100,000 tons this weekly output, the remainder being spread abroad—some for shipping purposes, but the greater part for household and factory consumption. To raise 350,000 tons of coal in six days would require the operation of 70,000 hands—that is to say, practical ‘pitmen’, with labourers and lads. It is reckoned that the united earnings of this great body of workmen average £100,000 a week—about 27s. a head per week ‘all round’; or take the labourers and lads at 10s. to £1 a week, and the miners at 34s.

In the immediate vicinity of these collieries are the establishments of at least a score of leading ironmasters, giving employment to some 30,000 men. Taking an ironworker’s wages at the low average of 27s. a week, nearly £40,000 would be required to satisfy the number above indicated. Then there are those who are engaged in the ironstone mines, a body of men reckoned by thousands, and whose earnings are said to be at least £10,000 weekly. One way and another it may be fairly reckoned that the South Wales coal-fields are not worked at a less weekly average cost in the shape of wages than £150,000, and when nothing is amiss this is the sum, barring the small savings of the pitman, which between Saturday and Saturday finds its way into the tills of the butcher, the baker, the grocer, the publican, and other worthy tradesfolk of Merthyr, Aberdare, Dowlais, and the surrounding districts. It is hard to say who feel most acutely the pinch of the lock-out—the shopkeeper, or those who in flourishing times are his profitable customers. In by far the majority of instances, the tradesmen in question depend mainly for support on those who are employed in the pits and at the ironworks, and when these are rendered wageless the shopkeeper may as well put up his shutters.”

Merthyr Tydvil, a place of 70,000 inhabitants, including the Dowlais, Cyfarthfa, Pen-y-darren, and other works, in the neighbourhood of the town, is situated in the north of Glamorganshire. It takes its name from an ancient Celtic princess, named Tydvil, who was Christian virgin martyr, slaughtered by the Pagan Saxons about King Arthur’s time. The Vale of Merthyr varies in width from a mile to half a mile, with hills on each side that nowhere reach an altitude of 2000 feet. It has all the characteristics of those valleys of South Wales where the days are darkened by furnaces vomiting smoke and the nights are illumined by hundreds of furnace fires. Such, at least, is its normal condition. The Vale of Merthyr is not the least valuable of the wealth-producing districts where gigantic fortunes have been accumulated. Right and left shafts rise out of the hill-side, and from side to side engines reply to each other. Small streams bear away the water that constantly springs in the underground workings. The entire vale is intersected with tramways, by which coal is conveyed, from the pit to the metal-works.

“But these days,” writes newspaper correspondent, “the Vale of Merthyr has begun to put on an appearance of desolation. The Plymouth Iron and Coal Works, which extend for nearly a couple of miles, and present a succession of valuable workings, are strangely silent. The steam-engines at the pit mouth, noisily and showily pumping, throw significant aspect of inactivity upon acres of unworked machinery; and there is long line of black, funnels, tall chimneys, gaunt beams and cranks, and gaping machinery in cold repose. Not a gleam will to-night enlighten the landscape where for years the valley has been notorious for its unearthly glare. An old man, gazing upon the dismal desertion of these magnificent works, says there are people starving in the valley, and that half the distress which exists, and will exist here, will be never known.”

In the midst of so much gloom, there is one gleam of satisfaction in the fact that the ironstone-miners are working. They will not be stopped. They have been associated with the ironworkers in past reductions, and, as they are dependent upon neither collieries nor ironworkers, work has been secured to them at Cyfarthfa. These men attempted a resistance to the first reduction, and were out about two months. They then applied for work, but the difference with the ironmasters having obliged Mr. Crawshay to blow out his blast-furnaces, he told them ironstone was not required. If, however, they chose to work upon the wages of 1871—that was, 30 per cent below the highest point which had been reached, and the level to which the present reduction of 10 per cent brings colliers’ labour—they might go on. They accepted the offer, and have been working with regularity ever since.

Although the ironworks have been at a standstill all the time, and the colliers are now reduced to a similar condition, they will be kept going, no matter how long this struggle may last. It is stated that Mr. Crawshay would have kept his ironworkers similarly employed, had they met him in the same spirit; he would have stocked iron to the extent of 100,000 tons rather than they should have been thrown out of employment. Further, he made more than one effort to come to an arrangement with the association for the employment of his ironworks colliers alone, but the union question cropped up and became an insurmountable obstacle. Cyfarthfa, therefore, with the exception of the ironstone works, is in the same position as all the rest of the ironworks, with one furnace only in blast.

There has been no event of importance during the week, lord Aberdare (who was Mr. Bruce, late Home Secretary) has declined to interfere on behalf of the men, and advises them give way. The Merthyr poor-law guardians impose stone-breaking tasks as a condition of outdoor relief.

Illustrated London News – 20 February 1875

Land Ownership in Merthyr Tydfil – part 2

by Brian Jones

Throughout the Medieval period the number of local farms increased and these Manorial farms improved their productivity whilst the population waxed and waned. The antiquarian, David Merch, studied the 1558 “Morganiae Archaiographia” and identified 14 freehold farms. Manorial Rent Lists became important historical sources and John Griffiths used these records in his detailed work “Historical Farms of Merthyr Tudful” (2012) he identified 120 farms (see map below) twenty five of which were “Charter Land Farms” which were freehold in 1630 suggesting that the aristocracy divested a proportion of their freehold land in order to accrue capital or to curry favour with landed gentry. The freeholders of noble birth had been established for hundreds of year however these were not continuous blood lines. For example, the Earldom of Plymouth title has been established three times, firstly in 1675 by Charles II and by 1765 there had been another different family line as the original title holders did not have children or near relatives required in order to inherit.

Five centuries after Gilbert de Clare claimed freehold ownership of all of the Merthyr land by force, a number of entrepreneurs came into the valley to begin the manufacture of iron. Business people such as Anthony Bacon, William Brownrigg, Isaac Wilkinson, John Guest, Richard Crawshay and the three Homfray brothers jostled to gain leases to build the ironworks: Dowlais (1759), Plymouth (1763), Cyfarthfa (1765) and Penydarren (1784). These works were financed by wealthy individuals and distant investors aware that resources were available to include coal, ironstone, limestone, clay, timber and particularly important, supplies of water.

The rich absentee freeholders owned tracts of local farmland and were anxious to lease their holdings in the knowledge they could increase their income by leasing land for the extraction of minerals to the newcomers rather than from their existing tenant farmer. Two of the largest freeholders were the Earl of Plymouth and Earl Talbot whose forebears had concentrated on rural economies but now they changed their attitude to manufacturing and this opened a new chapter on the ownership of land in their possession. There was a rapid decline in the number of farms and an attendant change from a rural to an urban economy; houses were required for the influx of people to man the ironworks, quarry the limestone and mine the iron ore and coal. People left the land for the minor village which now began to increase in size.

450 years after Gilbert de Clare,7th Earl of Gloucester took possession of the land, later known as Merthyr parish, it is remarkable that three dynasties owned the majority of the freehold of the parish. At the beginning there were no maps to record existing land holdings and therefore landscape features assumed particular importance and the River Taff served as a boundary. Much of the land to the west of the river was owned by Lord Talbot whilst that to the east of the river was owned by the Earl of Plymouth with a portion around the parish church owned by the successors of the Lewis family. The leases for all four ironworks are set out in an authoritative work completed by John Lloyd in his 1906 book “The Early History of the Old South Wales Ironworks 1760 -1840”. This work draws on the extensive collection of leases drawn up by a Brecon firm of solicitors, Messrs Walter and John Powell. The first Cyfarthfa lease of 7^th October 1765 with Anthony Bacon and William Brownrigg was for 4000 acres of land below the junction of the Taff Fawr and Taff Fechan, southwards down the valley, to the centre line of Aberdare mountain. The ancestry of William Talbot can be traced back to a Norman family in France, then to Sir Gilbert Talbot (1276-1346) Lord Chamberlain to King Edward III who married into the Welsh line of Prince Rhys Mechyll. William Talbot was created Earl Talbot of Hensol in 1761 and his legacy had spanned centuries intertwining noble ancestry, legal expertise and political service. His estates were extensive and he had links to Llancaiach Fawr in Nelson and Dynevor (Dinefwr) in Carmarthenshire. The family name is still linked to the premier noble seat of the Earl of Shrewsbury where the present Earl is also titled as Baron Talbot of Hensol.

The Cyfarthfa lease of 29 August 1765 with William Talbot was also joined with Michael Richards of Cardiff. There is some uncertainty as to this latter freeholder although there appears to be a connection with the Llancaiach estate and Rhyd-y-Car farm. It is likely that some time between 1685 and 1729, Jane, one of the two daughters of Colonel Edward Pritchard, sold her half share of the Merthyr estate to a Michael Richards who in a later lease is identified as the freeholder of Rhyd-y-Car farm. The other daughter, Mary, married David Jenkins of Hensol and their daughter married Charles Talbot in 1713. It is likely that the Talbots and Richards were closely connected by the date of the Cyfarthfa lease of 1765 and by then Michael Richards was of some social standing and wealth, living in Cardiff.

The lease for the land to the east of the river was held by the other major freehold interest with the 4^th Earl of Plymouth of the 2^nd Creation, Other Lewis Windsor Hickman, styled as Lord Windsor, made the Lord Lieutenant of Glamorgan in 1754. This family had combined a few years earlier with a wealthy landed Glamorgan family with firm links to the history of Merthyr Tydfil (Tudful). In 1589 the Lewis family had occupied the Courthouse (Cwrt) at the site of the present Labour Club in the centre of the town, then the location of the small parish village with the church of “The Martyr”. “The Cwrt” was possibly the court of the Welsh prince, Ifor Bach and then passed through his descendants to the Lewis family who left Merthyr and moved to Caerphilly at the time of Elizabeth I where they built a manor house with extensive parkland at the Van. Lewis of the Van became the Sheriff of Glamorgan in 1548 and in time the Glamorgan estates were gifted to the last survivor of the family line, Elizabeth, who married into the Earl of Plymouth line with the 3^rd Earl of Plymouth in 1730 and hence the combined wealth of both families came into play.

In summary the ownership of land in Merthyr Tydfil (Tudful) changed from a sole landowner in 1267 with a small number of tenanted farms to increase to about 120 in 1630. Three quarters of the farms were rented and perhaps 14 to 25 freehold. Most of the freeholds were of relatively small acreage with substantial acreages in the hands of the few families who were descended from Norman lines. The Llancaiach estates and those of the Earles Plymouth and Talbot, and Richards, figure large in the leases for mineral rights agreed with the 4 local ironwork companies. Then the number of farms reduced and 100 years later the coal era building boom ensued to meet the needs of the new colliery villages. By that time the village became the growing town of Merthyr Tydfil, churches and chapels increased in number and the older churches reinforced their medieval rights as Glebe lands. As the 19^th turned into the 20^th century the vast majority of properties were leasehold however the Leasehold Reform Act of 1967 enabled leaseholders to acquire freehold interests and that ownership is now the norm.

200 years of history at Gwaunfarren – part 1

by Brian Jones

At the junction of Alexandra Road and Galon Uchaf Road is a triangular piece of land on which are sited ten houses named as Gwaunfarren Grove at postal code CF47 9BJ. Of extra significance is an additional older property named “Gwaunfarren Lodge” positioned at the entrance to the much newer residential development. The location comprises a modern housing development on land which has undergone considerable change in the last 200 years. A review of the history of this small portion of the Gwaunfarren locality reveals a sequence of events which mirror cultural and social changes in pre- and post-industrial Merthyr Tydfil. This article plots the timeline of the land use played out between the latter years of the eighteenth century and the present day.

The Medieval Hamlet of Garth comprised of land stretching from Morlais Castle to Caeracca, then south to Gellifaelog, Goytre, Gurnos, Galon Uchaf, Gwaunfarren, Gwaelodygarth and Abermorlais. Some of this land was occupied by both yeoman and tenant farmers with pasture for sheep and cattle. The freehold ownership of the land, with its few farms, passed from family to family and at the geographical centre of the Hamlet was a parcel of land then called Gwaun Faren. In 1789 Gwaun Faren was mapped by William Morrice who noted that both farms, Gwaun Faren and the adjacent Gwaelod Y Garth, had been purchased by Mr William Morgan of Grawen in 1785. That map was redrawn in 1998, and annotated, by Griffiths Bros and show in detail the fields comprising Gwaun Faren farm. This revised map conforms to the 1850 Tithe Map and particular attention is drawn to the field marked C annotated as Cae Bach (little field). This field now relates to post code CF47 9BJ which is the locus for Gwaunfarren Grove.

The 1850 Tithe Map shows field number 1901 as the homestead identified as “The Dairy” at the centre of a number of fields which made up the farm named as Gwaun Faren. The name has varied over time to include Gwaun Varen, Gwain Varen, Gwaun Faren, Gwaun Farren to the present-day spelling of Gwaunfarren. There is some debate as to the meaning of part of the name: “Gwaun=meadow” however there is some uncertainty as to the origin of “faren/Farren”. The Welsh-English Dictionary “Y Geiriadur Mawr” does not have a translation for this word and there is some speculation that it may have originated in the Irish word “Fearann” pronounced “Farran” meaning “pasture”. The book “Merthyr Tydfil – A Valley Community” (1981) published by The Merthyr Teachers Centre Group records the name as “Gwaun=meadow” and “Farren= warren” thus “Warren Meadow”.

In 1850 the freeholder of the farm was Mary Morgan the widow of William Morgan and the farmland was leased to the Penydarren Iron Company. That ironworks was less than half a mile away and the roads accessing the general locality conform in major part to the present-day road system. These were trackways and subsequently they became the present-day Alexandra Avenue and Galon Uchaf Road. There is no evidence of coal mining on the Gwaunfarren farmland however it is likely that iron stone and coal transited the adjacent trackways into the nearby iron works. The 1850 map identifies the farm homestead as “The Dairy” and it is probable that the farm produced milk, butter and cheese for the growing industrial population. The nearby Penydarren Ironworks opened in 1784 in the ownership of the Homfray family and George Forman. This was the smallest of the four local ironworks and in due course it made the cables of flat bar link for the Menai Straits Suspension Bridge. The works closed in 1857 followed shortly thereafter by the Plymouth Ironworks in 1859 whilst the two larger works at Cyfarthfa and Dowlais remained open.

Field number 1901 on the 1850 Tithe Map configures with the 2-acre piece of land that is now identified as post code CF47 9BJ. This land was leased in 1862 to William Simons for 25 years and he funded its redevelopment He was the first of two successful wealthy individuals and their families who lived there in succession until the 1920s. William was a barrister practising in Castle Street and he lived in the house with his wife and children from 1862 until 1888. He purchased the farmhouse and set about making substantial changes to that building, laid out a new garden, driveway and built a Lodge at the main entrance to the drive. His great grandson, Graham Simons later recounted a story detailed by one of Williams daughters, Phoebe, that some of the walls of the house were 4 feet thick and this perhaps indicates that some of the original farm building had been incorporated in the new house identified in the 1850 Tithe Map as “The Dairy”. A plan of the new house and garden is shown below. Note that the architect identified the house as “Gwain-faren” later named as “Gwaunfarren House”.

Parts of the old farmhouse were retained, the building substantially increased in size and an impressive new facade was built based on a Victorian style of architecture much in vogue at the time as demonstrated in an early photograph of the new house.

Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

Margaret Stewart Taylor did not include the house in her essay titled “The Big Houses of Merthyr Tydfil” published in the inaugural edition of the “Merthyr Historian Volume I” in 1976. However this was indeed a large house necessary to accommodate the first large family to reside there. The 1871 census shows that in addition to William Simons and his wife, Clara, there were 8 children and 7 staff: a governess, nurse, nursemaid, cook, laundress and 2 housemaids. Ten years later the family had increased to 11 children making a compliment of 20 family plus staff. It is suggested that there were legal disputes between William Simons, the leaseholder, and the freeholder of the land which played a part in the move of the Simons family to Cardiff in 1888.

To be continued…….

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.

But stay! there was a round building that must not be forgotten. It is probable that many are unacquainted with its purpose, for they are not in vogue now. It was a structure for the rolls not in use, or being attended to for making or repairing. It was built round so that a crane fixed in the centre would sweep around, so as to deliver or take up all within its scope. I should add the rolls were stored on their ends, the floor plates having the necessary circular holes for taking in the neck or bearing, and so keep them in vertical position.

As regards the individuality of Penydarren, Mr Richard Forman was the one time manager, and resided at Gwaelodygarth Cottage. When Mr Grenfell was manager he resided at Gwaunfarren, and it was so occupied by Mr Benjamin Martin after he became manager, previous to which he resided on the “yard”, or rather the road leading to it and to Caemarydwn (sic).

Mr Martin had five brothers and one sister that can be remembered. Two of his brothers, Joseph and Thomas, were in the works; Edward who became the registrar at Penydarren; John was the doctor, living near the Bush, in the High Street of Merthyr, and George, who is always remembered in Dowlais. The sister married and went to America, whence she returned, and lived in a house between where the Pontmorlais turnpike gate stood and the bottom of Penydarren Works.

The first millwright that can be recalled was Mr Thomas Davies, who went thence to Nantyglo. He was succeeded by John Watt, from Dowlais, who afterwards removed to Govan. James Roe, a younger brother of John P Roe, was there also, and I think he died there. Bye-the-bye, he married either the daughter or other relative of the Waunwyllt family. Adrian Stephens (left), the inventor of the steam whistle, was also there.

It was in the Penydarren Forge one of Trevithick’s engines and boilers was seen, and another also of his make was used for winding coal at Winch Fawr. The upper end of the forge was built of limestone, and the purest specimen of Doric architecture ever seen in South Wales. The chimney or stack of the roll lathe, not many yards thence, was a copy of the Monument on Fish Street Hill, but one fifth the size.

Now to return to the crossing of the turnpike road on the limestone tramroad. I have an idea that Mr Morgan, who lived close by there, and already alluded to, married a sister of Mr Benj. Martin, but she has not been mentioned with that gentleman’s other brothers and sisters as I am not positive respecting it.

There were houses almost continually from her to Dowlais. On the opposite (the left) side of the road there was a shop kept by the name of Williams – it was a son of his, I believe, who erected a flour mill, and opened a grocery and and provision place on the right hand side of Victoria Street and named it the Hong Kong Shop.

I have omitted to say that one of those living in the houses near Penydarren Office was a Mr Gibson; he was the cashier, and married a Miss Farmer, whose father was a gunsmith etc. in Cardiff. His shop was, as near as I can remember, where or near there is one one present, between the Bute estate offices and the Angel Hotel. He built a row of cottages on the left, opposite to where the road now turns to Dowlais, and thus avoids Gellyfaelog, which is known to this day as Gibson’s Row.

Gibson’s Row in the 1940s. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

A family named Waters also lived in the clump. John, the eldest son, became the furnace manager at Duffryn under Mr A Hill, in which position some years after he was succeeded by Mr John Place. Mr Evan Roberts, another of Mr Hill’s furnace managers, had charge at Plymouth after Mr Thos. Davies left.

To be continued at a later date…….

Merthyr Tydfil to Aber Cynon Tramroad – part 2

by Gwilym and John Griffiths

In October 1858, Rees Jones was interviewed by the Mining Journal. He assisted Richard Trevithick in the making of his locomotive. It worked very well but frequently its weight broke the tram-plates. On the third (see below) journey it broke a great many of the tram-plates. It was brought back to Pen y Darren by horses. The steam-engine was never used as a locomotive after this.

‘The Pen y Darren Locomotive’ added, without stating the source, that: Over the next few weeks the locomotive made numerous journeys over the tramroad and was later used as a stationary engine for pumping water, winding coal and driving a forging hammer.

The newspaper, Cambrian, reported the trial briefly: ‘Yesterday’, the long-awaited trial of Mr Trevithick’s newly-invented steam engine, for which he obtained His Majesty’s letters patent, to draw and work carriages of all descriptions on various kinds of roads, as well as for a number of other purposes to which its power may be usefully employed, took place near this town, and was found to perform to admiration all that was expected from its warmest advocates.

In the present instance, the novel application of steam by means of this truly valuable machine was made use of to convey along the tramroad ten tons, long weight, of bar iron from Pen y Darren Works to the place where it joins the Glamorgan Canal, upwards of nine miles distant; and it is necessary to observe that the weight of the load was soon increased from ten to fifteen tons by about seventy persons riding on the trams, who, drawn thither, as well as many others, by invincible curiosity, were eager to ride at the expense of the first display of the patentee’s abilities in this country.

To those who are not acquainted with the exact principle of this new engine, it may not be improper to observe that it differs from all others yet brought before the public, by disclaiming the use of condensed water, and discharges it into the open air, or applies it to the heating of fluids, as convenience may require. The expense of making engines on this principle does not exceed one half of many on the most approved plan made use of before this appeared. It takes much less coal to work it, and it is only necessary to supply a small quantity of water for the purpose of creating steam, which is the most essential matter. It performed the journey without feeding or using any water, and will travel with ease at the rate of five miles an hour. It is not doubted but that the number of horses in the kingdom will be very considerably reduced, and the machine, in the hands of the present proprietors, will be made use of in a hundred instances never yet though of for an instant’.

The Parliamentary Gazetteer of England and Wales, circa 1840, added extra bits of information: The first locomotive, though with toothed wheels, is said to have been started on the old Merthyr-Tydvil railroad in 1804, having been patented by Messrs Vivian and Co, in 1802; it was then stated to have drawn ten tons of bar iron at the rate of five miles an hour; but it did not come into anything like general use for the carriage of goods till ten years afterwards. The present (1840) noble species of locomotives, however, and railways, are of still more recent origin. There was clearly some conflict over the patent?

It seems likely that the authors must have made a mistake over ‘toothed wheels’: perhaps they were thinking of the cog-wheels on the engine itself?

We find it hard to believe that there was any need or purpose to construct the smaller tunnel near Plymouth Works in 1802, though this is the date so stated by Leo Davies in ‘Bridges of Merthyr Tydfil’, page 155, and the tunnel certainly existed by the time of John Woods’ 1836 Street Map of Merthyr Tudful. Richard Trevithick did not mention it in his letter describing the journey (but see below) yet, at only 8ft 4in high, it must have proved a problem for his steam locomotive with a stack of almost similar height? The second tunnel was apparently built around 1860 or 1862, per Leo Davies. Why was it needed? Why was it so much higher at 13ft 0in? The lower tunnel would have limited the height of any transport through it, a quarter of a century after the arrival of the Taff Vale Railway.

A Trystan Edwards, in ‘Merthyr, Rhondda and The Valleys’, page 163, apparently knew (from frustratingly unnamed sources but see above quote) that Richard Trevithick was assisted in the construction of the engine by Rees Jones of Dowlais and that the engine-driver’s name was Watkin Richards. He wrote that a collision with a bridge brought down both bridge and stack (though Trevithick himself made no reference to this accident in his account). Trystan Edwards recorded that the engine failed to return, a fact totally incorrect according to Trevithick’s own account written at the time.

According to Joseph Gross, ‘The Merthyr Tramroad’, in Merthyr Historian, volume 1, Anthony Bacon refused to make the award of the bet because Richard Trevithick had moved some sleepers in the tunnel near Plymouth Works to the middle to allow the funnel to pass. This was supposed to have changed the existing track, violating one of the conditions of the wager. The return journey of the locomotive was not completed because it was said the gradient was too steep. This, too, contradicts other sources.

Merthyr Tydfil to Aber Cynon Tramroad – part 1

by Gwilym and John Griffiths

Some sources have recorded that this tramroad (then called a dram road) was started around 1800 by agreement between William Taitt of Dowlais, Samuel Homfray of Pen y Darren and Richard Hill of Plymouth. They added that the construction, under the supervision of George Overton, was allegedly started in 1799 and finished in 1802. Yet see under Leases 1800 for a few of the early leases in summary. It seems that Richard Fothergill was much involved in setting up these leases. In addition, the route was always described as being from Morlais Castle to Navigation House. The route was from Pen y Darren to Aber Cynon, 9½ miles, a fall of 341 feet. Brief details were recorded in The Pen y Darren Locomotive by Stuart Owen-Jones.

The tramroad was used briefly (three times or numerous times, see below) with a trial of Trevithick’s steam engine on Tuesday 21 Feb 1804, returning to Pen y Darren the following day, but shortly thereafter the tramroad reverted to horse power for many further years. The weight of the steam-engine apparently damaged the rails. However, Charles Wilkins, ‘The History of Merthyr Tydfil’, page 252, thought that the engine, ‘after serving a long time on the tramway, was removed to a pit called Winch Fawr (in the hamlet of Heol Wermwd not the one in the hamlet of Gelli Deg), and finally taken to the top of the incline owned by the Pen y Darren Company at Cwm Bargod.’ We are not so sure. Richard Trevithick himself recorded the event from which the following summary is appropriate:

On Saturday 11 Feb 1804, the fire was lit in the ‘Tram Waggon’ and Richard Trevithick worked it without the wheels to try the engine.
On Monday 13 Feb 1804, they put the waggon on the ‘Tram Road’. It worked very well and ran up hill and down with great ease and was very manageable. There was plenty of power.
Between 13 Feb and 20 Feb 1804 the ‘Tram Waggon’ had been worked several times. They had tried loads of up to ten tons, and it worked easily. He was sure it could cope with forty tons. Richard Trevithick intended making a smaller engine for the tram road as the first one had too much power, and would be used instead to work a hammer.
On Tuesday 21 Feb 1804 they made the journey with the engine. They carried ten tons, presumably of iron, in five waggons, with seventy men riding on them for the whole of the journey. He recorded, very clearly, that it took four hours and five minutes to cover the nine miles because they had to cut down some trees and remove some large rocks out of the tram road. No mention of the stack being knocked down by a bridge or any problem with the ‘tunnel’ by Plymouth Works. They returned, but a broken bolt released the water, and the engine did not arrive back at Pen y Darren Works until the evening of Wednesday 22 Feb 1804. No mention of broken tramway plates or of having to be hauled back to Pen y Darren by horse.
Later they tried the carriage with twenty-five tons of iron, and found the engine was more than a match for that weight. The steam was delivered into the chimney above the damper. It made the draught much stronger by going up the chimney. Trevithick’s locomotive was the first to employ this very important principle of turning the exhaust steam up the chimney, so producing a draft which drew the hot gases from the fire more powerfully through the boiler.

In May 1854, some forty years later, Thomas Ellis, an engineer from Tredegar, wrote a letter describing the first journey the Pen y Darren locomotive took in February, 1804. His father was at Pen y Darren when the engine was made and tried. Samuel Homfray, proprietor of the Pen y Darren Works, Merthyr Tydfil, made a bet of 1,000 guineas with Richard Crawshay, of the Cyfarthfa Works, that Trevithick’s steam-engine could convey a load of iron from his works to the Navigation House, nine miles distant.

To be continued……

Memories of Old Merthyr Tydfil

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.

Bidding goodbye to Plymouth, let us walk up to Penydarren, but to fall into line with what has been previously stated, now imagine ourselves at the old turnpike gate close to the Morlais Castle Inn. The road inclining to the right must now be followed.

After a short time the tramroad from the basin would be crossed, and only a few yards previously, the branch into the works would be seen. The gates, or rather the lower gates of the works are here, and passing through, the works would be virtually surrounding you, at least the rail shed, the brickyard, an the new mill, but persons other than hauliers with their horses etc. were not allowed in that way, so we must keep to the turnpike road for a short distance, having the tramway on the left, when another gate would be come to opposite the entrance to Penydarren Park.

A composite of parts of the 1851 Ordnance Survey Map showing Penydarren House and Gardens (left) and the Penydarren Ironworks (right)

Only a few yards further on the tramway again crosses the road, and over this very crossing the turnpike gate (the Penydarren gate) was hung. The gate house on the left was only recently removed by the District Council.

The clump of buildings on the right from the entrance gate to the works was agents or other employees residences, with the offices of the works in front of them. The tramroad kept to the right, and did not rise as fast as the turnpike road. There were no houses on the right-hand side of the road until the tramroad from the Morlais Limestone Quarries had been crossed.

The first come to was occupied by Mr Morgan, the blast furnace manager, but there were some cottages on the left before coming to the tramroad. There was a brick cistern near the crossing that was made for the use of the locomotives at work on the lower, or basin road, and upon one occasion, while being filled, the boiler exploded.

Before proceeding further, let us glance at the prospect on the right. Immediately in front were the blast furnaces, five in a row and one detached, a little to the right; but before reaching them the Morlais Brook, or dingle in which it ran, would be seen, then a long incline leading up on the left. This was used for the removal of cinders or other refuse, no doubt, after the tip on the riverside had become as large as could well be. On the other side of the incline were the blast furnaces, with a large spherical wrought-iron regulator for the blast between the engine houses.

To the left of the furnace yard are, or were, the hitting shops; to the right, after the blast furnaces, was the refinery, the the smiths shop, a self-acting incline to lower coal forge and mill use; then the rod lathe, the forge (or puddling forge) followed these mills where bars, sheets and slit rods were made. The rail mill was the lowest, and the sheds extended to the gates at the bottom of the works.

To be continued at a later date……

The Pioneers of the Welsh Iron Industry

Following on from the recent article about Charles Wilkins, here is a transcription of an article written by him for an issue of his publication ‘The Red Dragon’, which appeared 140 years ago this month.

It is a little over one hundred years ago, in May, 1782, when a messenger came from Wales into the neighbourhood of Stourbridge with great news. One Mr. Bacon had started an ironworks near a village called Merthyr, and he wanted a lot of men. There was a good deal of gossip caused by this. A recruiting sergeant coming into an English village to enlist lads for glory could not have made a greater ferment. Merthyr was “far down in Wales,” and Wales to many seemed as distant as America. “You have to go,” said the messenger, “to Gloucester in a boat, and then trust to the channel and work round as far as Cardiff, and then it is a couple of days’ journey up the mountains.”

There was, I repeat, a good deal of ferment, and no little hesitation, but at last the requisite number of hands was got, and away they went, bidding sorrowful farewells—many of them knowing it may be for years or it may be forever.” It would not do, they thought, to take their household gods with them, but the pets—Bill’s dog, and Tom’s cat—could not be left behind. The Lees carried between them a wicker cage in which was a shining blackbird. Let us look at them a moment, for they were the pioneers of our old English residents, the Homfrays, Hemuses, Lees, Browns, Turleys, Wilds, Millwards, and they are worthy of more than a passing notice. Powerful men, all of them, trained to labour from youth, and full of hope and of determination. They are going as settlers amongst strange people, who speak a different language, and who may resent the incoming of strangers. Well, let them. The strangers are not only strong, but God-fearing men, and they take sturdily to the boat which tediously carries them down to Worcester.

So tedious was the journey that when Worcester was reached one or two of the men wanted to go back home again, but Homfray, the leader, would not hear of it, and his hand being hard, and his voice strong, they gave in. Gloucester was at length reached, and at that place a barge was hired and down the Severn they went, hugging the coast wherever they could. But somehow or other when night came on the barge drifted out into mid channel, and to their horror on came a storm.

Now everyone wished himself back at the village of Stewpovey, where most of them came from! How fiercely they looked at Homfray, who had led them into this trouble. Presently, however, the storm abated, and they found themselves under Penarth Head, and there was not much difficulty after that in landing at Cardiff. Very small, very insignificant was Cardiff then; a few streets clustering about the Castle, and only a little life there when the boat came once a week from Bristol. At Cardiff, waggons were hired and up the wayfarers toiled through the valley, reaching Merthyr at last.

One of the old pioneers, pipe in mouth and grandson on knee, used in his declining days to tell the wondering listeners his experience of the voyage, and the journey through Merthyr to Cyfarthfa. It was a small place, he said, was Merthyr; just a village like; small houses, fields, and gardens on one side or the other. The houses were thatched, and as the strangers rode by in their waggons their heads were on a level with the eaves. The old inhabitants used to think a two-storied house extravagance. What was the use of mounting upstairs to go to bed?

On reaching Merthyr the wanderers lodged where they could. The “Star” was the principal inn, the “Crown” was a thatched house. At the “Boot,” Ben Brown, being short of funds, sold his dog for ninepence. It was like parting with his own flesh and blood! Then with the morning they were up, and in consultation with Bacon, who had contracted with Homfray to’ build a forge. The work was done as quickly as possible, for the American war was raging, and guns were needed. In due time the forge was got ready. Every man, woman, and child from the village came up to the opening. Shonny Cwmglo was there with his wonderful harp. Shonny could play every tune, although he had never learned a note, and he played away till he was a hundred, or ever the silver strings were loosed, and, his feeble hands falling from the strings, he laid him down and died. The boys and girls danced, and the men and women raised their voices in gladness when the forge was started.

A species of delirium seized upon everybody, and the harper played like the fiddler of Prague, increasing the madness. Homfray seizing Hemus’s new hat, a wonderful thing, threw it under the hammer, and his own followed like magic. Ale houses did a great trade that day and night. Robert Peel’s policemen and “Bruce” were all in the far-off future at that time. Many of the pioneers died at a brave old age, long before- policemen came into existence.

For several years Bacon and the Homfrays worked well together, but one day there was a falling out, and a fight, and the friendship was never renewed on the old lines. Homfray did not care to go back again with the Browns and the Wilds, who were now getting settled. Some of them had fallen in love with the dark-eyed daughters of the village; and courting had been so pleasant to a few that others had followed. The broken English of the maidens was so pretty, and their eyes had such a fire in them. Many a girl, though, had to be won by fierce fighting, for the boys of the village had no love for the strangers. On Saturdays, when strangers and villagers met, drank, and fought, the village constable discreetly kept out of the way. Things have changed since then.

To understand the story of the starting of Penydarran we must turn back a page or two of the book of history. Homfray passing by the ravine on the right of the roadway as you ascend from Merthyr to Dowlais, was struck with its adaptability for the site of an ironworks, and rented it for £3 a year. He and two other Homfrays were joined by a Londoner, named Forman, who held some kind of office at the Tower, and had saved a lot of money. Then together they built a furnace, and went along swimmingly. In 1796 they built furnace No. 2, and brought another lot of men from Staffordshire. In that year they fairly eclipsed even Dowlais itself; for while Dowlais turned out 2,100 tons in the year, Penydarran could show a make of 4,100 tons, or nearly double. Penydarran was regarded as the more important centre in every way. We have only to turn to the rate books to see that while Penydarran was rated at £3,000, Dowlais was only rated at £2,000, and Plymouth at £750. By 1803 Penydarran made fifty tons of bar iron weekly. It is to John Davies, father of Mr D. Davies, J.P., of Galon Uchaf, and of the Morriston Tinplate Works, that is due the honour of rolling the first bar. The son afterwards arose to be the owner of the works. What Penydarran accomplished in after days and how under Trevethick its owners started the first locomotive that ever ran, must be left for another paper.