by Barrie Jones
Chapter Four
Wheatley Place
Wheatley Place was the last street built in this the first phase of the Keir Hardie Estate building programme. The programme commenced in late 1946 and the first house in the development, number one Aneurin Crescent was let in January 1948. Tenants of Wheatley Place moved into their new homes in the summer of 1948.
The street comprises of twenty-two properties, three concrete, (Wimpy No Fines), and nineteen prefabricated, (BISF). The houses are numbered from one to forty-three, odd numbers only, perhaps in anticipation that the ‘green’ opposite would be built on sometime in the future. The street is unusual in so far as that number one is one half of a semidetached concrete house, the pair of which is number thirty-four Glasier Road. The house is tucked around the corner from Wheatley Place, so there must have been some confusion when persons were trying to find number one. In fact, before the estate was completed the Housing Manager obtained approval to have house numbers fitted to the doors of all the estate’s houses to avoid this sort of problem. Located at the top of the street are numbers three and five, the remaining two concrete houses in the street. The street descends from its junction with Jowett Avenue levelling off as it approaches number thirty-three. The last house in the street, number forty-three, is a prefabricated house paired with number thirty-seven Aneurin Crescent.
The following families were first allocated houses in Wheatley Place in 1948:
| House Number | Tenant | Housing List Number |
| One | Davies | 3025 |
| Three | ? | – |
| Five | ? | – |
| Seven | Richards | 692 |
| Nine | Jones | 2479 |
| Eleven | Scriven | 3051 |
| Thirteen | Curtis | 1005 |
| Fifteen | Pratt | 2772 |
| Seventeen | Johnson | 2634 |
| Nineteen | Egan | 779 |
| Twenty-one | Moran | 2631 |
| Twenty-three | Chamberlain | 1189 |
| Twenty-five | Davies | – |
| Twenty-seven | Coombes | Key Worker |
| Twenty-nine | ? | – |
| Thirty-one | Regan | 3048 |
| Thirty-three | Bowen | 859 |
| Thirty-five | O’Neill | 1556 |
| Thirty-seven | Jones | 2222 |
| Thirty-nine | Howells | 3259 |
| Forty-one | Thomas | 2023 |
| Forty-three | Richardson | 3031 |
In August 1948, my parents with my two older brothers moved into number thirty-seven. My father was demobbed from the Royal Navy in June 1946 and my two brothers were born in 1946 and 1947, respectively. At that time, my parents were living with my father’s parents in number twelve Union Street, Thomastown. My father recounted that to better his chance of securing a council house he paid a visit to Councillor Claud Stanfield at his home in Troedyrhiw. My grandfather was born in Troedyrhiw and many of my father’s aunts and uncles lived in the village and so the family were known to Councillor Stanfield. As well as being the Troedyrhiw Ward councillor, he was also the local insurance agent for a Friendly Society, which would involve calling on numerous families in the village. It is not certain that my father’s lobbying had any influence in securing a council house, his waiting list number was quite low, 2222, but Councillor Stanfield may have hastened the housing allocation. Two months following the move, my mother gave birth to me in the front bedroom of number thirty-seven. So, I may have been the first born on Keir Hardie Estate.
In July 1948 the Home Office, in consultation with the Ministry of Health, offered an additional allocation of twenty houses to meet general housing needs on the understanding that twenty houses on various sites in the borough were made available for occupation by police officers. Number one Wheatley Place was selected for one such police house and Police Constable (PC) Davies was the first police tenant; later PC Vernon Conway assumed the tenancy.
The County Borough’s expansive post-war house building programme occurred during a time of industrial relocation and growth and new housing was essential for key workers as well as new families and it was the Council’s policy to ensure suitable housing for such workers. In May 1947, the Housing Committee re-emphasised its intention that one in ten new council properties would be allocated to key workers. On the Keir Hardie Estate this ratio was not achieved with only eighteen first lettings from a total of two-hundred and seventy-six houses. Number twenty-seven Wheatley place was allocated to Mr E. F. Coombes, of Hoover Ltd., who moved in with his wife and two children. Sometime later, Mr Coombes purchased a property elsewhere and moved out of the street, when older his son Ernest (Ernie) joined the Merthyr Borough Police Force.
Growing up in the 1950s, the Second World War was still fresh in the memories of those living on the estate and Mrs Richardson of number forty-three was a war widow. Her husband Ernest had been killed soon after the Normandy landings (1944), leaving Mrs Richardson to raise her children, twins Eric and Eileen, on her own. Being one of the older boys in the street, Eric would take the lead in some of our street activities, especially the construction of our November the Fifth bonfire which was always built on the green space between the boundary fence of the Mardy Hospital and the rear of numbers fifty-two and fifty-four Aneurin Crescent.
In 1948 the National Service Act introduced peacetime conscription into the armed services. From the 1st of January 1949 all healthy males between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one were required to serve a period of service of eighteen months. Men working in ‘essential services’: mining, farming, and the merchant navy were exempt from call up. National service ended gradually from 1957 with the last national service man leaving service in May 1963. I recall that two boys on either side of our house were called up; Mr O’Neill’s son from number thirty-five went into the army, and Eddie Howells from number thirty-nine went into the Royal Navy.
One of the characters in the street was Mr Davies of number twenty-five, known to us ‘locals’ as Dai Brecon. Dai took great enjoyment in annoying our pet dog, Peg, who would bark at him every time he passed our house. Other than chasing motor bikes, Peg never barked at anyone else in the street.
The green between Jowett Avenue and our street was an ideal play space for us children with trees to climb etc. The road around the green, the “block” was used as a cycling and running track and races were a favourite pastime with the finishing line by the lamppost on the flat stretch near our house.
Conclusion
As stated in my introduction Wheatley Place does not have as long a history as other streets in Merthyr Tydfil, just under seventy-seven years, nevertheless, it has a story to tell. Also, my account only covers the street up to 1980 and a lot more has happened in or near the street since then; a murder in Greenwood Close and more expansion of the Estate on the remaining part of the ‘Green’ are just a few examples. Others may accept the baton to tell more of the story of Wheatley Place, whilst after reading my account others may wish to tell the story of their own street.
Although prefabricated buildings have a long life, they are not expected to remain standing as long as those built under more traditional methods, my only hope is that Keir Hardie Estate and Wheatley Place in particular, have more years before and more stories to tell.
