The cause at Horeb was begun in 1837 by Rev Joshua Thomas, the minister of Adulam Chapel in Merthyr. Rev Thomas started a school in a room adjoining the Lucania Billiard Room in Penydarren, and several members of Adulam, who were living in Dowlais, met Rev Thomas in the school and started holding prayer meetings there. The congregation grew to an extent that it was decided to build a new chapel, just a few yards away from Joshua Thomas’ school. The foundation stone was laid on 1 August 1839, and the chapel, the first place of worship in Penydarren, was completed the following year at a cost of £700. The original chapel was built in an elevated position overlooking the High Street.
The original Horeb Chapel. Photo courtesy of Carl Llewellyn.
For the first few years, Horeb was in a joint ministry with Adulam with the Rev Joshua Thomas ministering to both chapels. However when Rev Thomas left Merthyr in 1843, the elders of the chapel decided to call their own minister, and Rev Evan Morgan was ordained on March 26-27 1844. Sadly Rev Morgan was a victim of the cholera epidemic and died in June 1849, and he, his wife and one of his children were buried on the same day.
As a result of the cholera epidemic, there was a religious revival in Wales with many people joining chapels and churches. The congregation at Horeb continued to grow and in 1853, a new chapel was built at a cost of £1100. The new chapel was built with the main entrance now facing Horeb Street. Within three years a new schoolroom was also built next to the chapel at a cost of £400.
The second Horeb Chapel. Photo courtesy of Carl Llewellyn.
In 1891, the fabric of the building was in need of some attention, so the chapel underwent minor renovations and a new pulpit and ‘Big Seat’ were erected at a cost of £330.
By 1908, it had become obvious that the chapel was becoming quite dilapidated and really not adequate for the congregation, so a new chapel was built in 1908/09 at a cost of £3,900, including £400 for a grand pipe organ.
The magnificent third Horeb Chapel.
The interior of the chapel was finished to a very high standard with magnificent plasterwork, and the gallery and pulpit made from a mixture of oak, pitch pine, mahogany and ebony. The new chapel was considered to be one of the finest chapels in South Wales.
On the night of 28 April 1973, an arsonist started a fire in the chapel, and the building was gutted. Only the vestry adjoining the chapel was saved, and also the iron name plate which was cast in the Dowlais Ironworks.
Horeb Chapel in ruins after the arson attack in 1973.
Following the fire the chapel had to be demolished and the decision was made to build a new chapel. A new modern chapel was built at a cost of £60,000. Horeb is now the only place of worship in Penydarren.
Do you know the Yard – the small, walled burial space at the heart of Quakers’ Yard village where Quaker burials happened until 1891? It’s a graveyard – gravestones now removed, all but one that is, which is flat to the ground and very understated, in Quaker fashion. If you’ve read about the burial ground on local websites or in older accounts of Merthyr history it’s as well to know that not everything you might read about it is accurate.
Among those things which are clearly odd is the claim that it was ‘opened’ in 1665 by someone called William Howe from Bristol. Odd, too, are some of the dates given for Quakers having supposedly worshipped clandestinely with other dissenters at Berthlwyd Farm, above Quakers’ Yard village.
Quakers’ Yard Burial Ground. Photo courtesy of the Alan George archive.
Firstly the ‘opening’ of that burial ground … a date of 1665 makes no sense. The piece of “walled about” land (as it’s described in the legal documents) was not given to the oversight of some named local Quakers until 1667. Yes, it was for Quakers to have burials in and then the gift of it “for a thousand years” to “the people of God called Quakers’’ was ratified in the freeholder’s will of 1670. Both of the documents were linked with the Quaker and widow Mary Chapman. She owned the Pantanas (or Pantannas) estate of which that burial ground land was a part. The documents are in the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth and at the time Mary Chapman lived in St. Mellons. But “opened” by a man from Bristol in 1665? I don’t think so.
The story makes no sense on other grounds too. In 1665 when the burial ground was allegedly opened Quakers were a newly-created sect. It had been under a decade and a half since their public emergence in England and in the 1660s they were much opposed by the authorities under Charles II. There had even been a Quaker Act in 1662, “for preventing mischiefs and dangers that may arise by certain persons called Quakers and others refusing to take lawful oaths”. The fact was that Quakers were widely suspected by “right thinking” people and this hardly tallies with some notion of them organising a formal “opening” of a very small burial area, given that the land was being set aside because of Quakers’ rift from the established church and the church’s refusal of ‘consecrated ground’ to such people. Presumably they wouldn’t have been inviting the local vicar to the ceremony!
In any case, the idea of such formality would have held no appeal for Quakers of those times and had there been no gifted land they would otherwise just have buried a loved one in whatever spot was available. Usually that was on their own land, while also refusing to acknowledge that any bit of earth was more ‘consecrated’ than the next one.
This was a troubled, messy time in the history of these islands and in Merthyr parish some Quakers had already been imprisoned for their nonconformity. In the 1660s, according to the Diocese of Llandaff’s account of ‘conventicles’ (i.e. illegal gatherings apart from the established church) the houses of some named men in Merthyr parish were being described as venues for “the mixt rabble” of dissenting preachers and those who agreed with them. Those named men, Quakers, had been among the ones incarcerated previously and/or they were recipients of the ground from Mary Chapman. These seemed more like outlaws in the eyes of the authorities than people wanting freedom of conscience and freedom of worship. All things considered, I can’t see these times as ones in which local Quakers would be getting a man in from Bristol for a nice opening of a burial ground.
And then there was Berthlwyd Farm … which was one of several places which have figured in Merthyr region’s history where religious dissent was concerned. Berthlwyd was sufficiently remote in those days to deflect prying interest and so it fitted the pattern of such places. The problem is, though, that it is claimed quite often that Quakers, with Baptists and other dissenters, were gathered together in Berthlwyd Farm “by 1650”. Yet that is impossible. There wasn’t a Quaker in Wales “by 1650”. The first Welsh person living in Wales to identify as Quaker did so in 1653, and he’d travelled to seek them out in the north of England. In South Wales it was later still for converts to Quakerism. Some of those worshippers up at Berthlwyd Farm who were religiously dissatisfied may have morphed in due course into the Quakers of the mid 1650s and 60s in Merthyr parish. In the 1640s, though, we should not number Quakers among Merthyr’s dissenters, as sometimes happens.
Some of the kind of imperfect information which gets repeated seems to come from local writers in the 19th century. They were also well confused about the Fell family. Lydia Fell was probably buried at Quakers’ Yard in 1699 and hers seems to have been the Quaker name best remembered in local folklore. She is said to have had some role in the early history of the burial ground too but misinformation and confusion about that, and about her, has also got around.
Christine Trevett was born in Susannah Place, where Treharris runs down to Quakers’ Yard. That gave her a nagging interest in Quaker history as a hobby even though the day job required that she researched other things. She’s published quite a lot on Quaker history, including Women and Quakerism in the 17th Century and Quaker women prophets in England and Wales 1650-1700. Her look at Dowlais Educational Settlement and the Quaker John Dennithorne will be published by Merthyr Tydfil Historical Society in 2022.
The autumn season with night’s drawing in reminds me of the childhood games of the 1950s and 1960s. After tea our play outdoors in late September and October would often over run into the dark hours before our parents would call us in for bed. One of the games that suited the need to stay active and warm on dry reasonably mild nights was ‘Strong Horses, Weak Donkeys’, also known as ‘Tal-y-Bimp’. Not altogether rough play for us older boys but certainly one that would not be allowed in today’s health and safety culture.
Tal-y-Bimp: Illustration by Mansel Jones, in School and Play in the Parish of Vaynor, From 1650 to the Present, 1983, reproduced courtesy of the publisher: Merthyr Tydfil & District Naturalists Society.
Two sides were chosen with about four to six in each, once chosen one side would ‘go down’; one boy, usually the smallest , stood with his back to a wall or post, to act as the cushion for the ’horse’. Then the other boys ‘scrummed’ down in a line , the first boy placing his head in the stomach of the standing boy and holding tight to the boy’s middle. The others, in turn, then placed their heads under the next boy’s legs grasping firmly around the boy’s thighs.
So the ‘horse’ was formed and was ready to be mounted by the other team. In turn, each boy would leap-frog upon the back of the ‘horse’ with the purpose of trying to make the it collapse to the ground. The best jumpers went first so that they leaped as far up the line of the ‘horse’ to make room for the other jumpers. It helped if they could manage to leap upon each other, as this added weight upon the back of just one boy. When all the boys had jumped, and the ‘horse’ hadn’t collapsed already, then they chanted “strong horses, weak donkeys, one, two, three, four, five”, If the ‘horse’ stood strong without collapsing they were the winners of that round; if they collapsed then they were weak donkeys and lost that round. If, any of the jumpers slid off the ‘horse’ and touched the ground before the chant was completed then their team lost that round also.
Picking sides needed a measure of fairness so that the smaller, weaker, heavier or more agile boys were evenly distributed between the two sides. The game could be both noisy and boisterous, with the occasional bruising and torn clothing but they were always enjoyable events. In our street the lamppost outside number 33, Wheatley Place, Keir Hardie Estate, was the ideal spot: well lit, and on a level stretch of roadway, and with no houses on the opposite of the side of the street a long run up for the leap on to the horse was possible.
There were numerous variants of the game which can be traced as far back as the sixteenth century, called ‘Buck, Buck’; it was played in Europe and the near East. The game appears in the bottom right hand corner of the painting ‘Children’s Games’, (1560), by Pieter Bruegel (The Elder) right.
In Britain the game was particularly popular in the 1930s and 1940s, continuing into the 1970s, and has now probably disappeared from our modern playgrounds and streets. In Wales it had numerous names, for example: ‘Strong Horses, Weak Donkeys’ in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, ‘Tal-y-Bimp’ in welsh speaking areas, and ‘Stagger Loney’ in Cardiff. While, across the regions of England and Scotland it had the interesting names of ‘Leap Frog’, ‘Mountie Kitty’, ‘High Jimmy Knacker’, ‘Hi Cockalorum’, ‘High Bobbery’, ‘Mobstick’, ‘Mount-a-Cuddy’, ‘Rigamajee’, and’ Pomerino’, to mention just a few.
Needless to say there were other ‘night’ games that we played, such as the hide and chase game ‘fox and hounds’ and the daring commando game of sneaking through our neighbours’ gardens without being seen. These are memories of nights that were always mild and dry and where time seemed to stand still until our mothers’ call to come home for bed.
On this day in 1896, an extraordinary event occurred in the ‘urban district’ of Merthyr Tydfil: The County Intermediate and Technical School opened for work. Parliament had not yet recognised Merthyr as a proper ‘town’ but it had recognised the need for Welsh boys and girls to further their school studies until the age of eighteen and even to set their sights on a university education, if desired. These were children of working-class and small businessmen parents who could not afford the luxury of private or public- school tuition for their offspring. The school opened without ceremony but in a formal gathering in January 1897 Professor Villiamu Jones, Principal of University College, Cardiff, ended his inaugural speech, hoping that many Merthyr pupils would pass into that college in the future. Over seven decades a fair number did just that.
The curriculum planned for the new secondary stage -‘county intermediate’ schools – in deprived, industrial areas of Wales was based on that of older grammar and public schools. They soon became known as county ‘grammar’ schools. Merthyr’s school was equipped to take in 100 boys and 80 girls who would pay a small fee. The knowledge of its young people broadened and their quality of life improved. Sadly, many children were not touched by this new venture and still left school at twelve, or earlier, usually because they had to, in order to earn a pittance – often down the mines – to boost the family income. The luckier ones, among whom were budding scholars, knew that a place in the school was a gift; some began to cherish ambitions of going to the new university colleges at Aberystwyth or Cardiff. Parents usually supported those youngsters even though it would mean seeing them leave home eventually – and possibly forever. Attendance numbers fluctuated but most pupils accepted that the new system of extra years and important exams would bring rewards.
Photo courtesy of the Alan George archive.
J.O. (John Oswald) Francis entered the school, at the age of fourteen, on the day it opened. He lived above his father’s farrier shop in 41, High Street, opposite the Baptist Chapel. He excelled at his studies and became a distinguished London dramatist, public speaker and broadcaster. When he left Merthyr at the age of eighteen his memories of the lively town stayed with him and inspired him to write plays and stories for nearly half a century. This is what he told wireless (radio!) listeners about the school in a B.B.C broadcast in the 1950s:
From St David’s School I went to the Higher Gradeschool in Caedraw. For boys whose parents did not send them away to school-and very few parents in Merthyr sent their children away for education- the Higher Grade was the limit the town offered us and it could not offer us much because it wasn’t linked to a university. For a boy who wanted to go on learning, Merthyr was a blind alley, a dead end. Then a rumour came flying about amongst us boys- flying for some of us like a bird with bright wings- a new kind of school was to be opened in Merthyr – a County Intermediate School that would provide secondary education up to quite a high level. And what a blessing the school was to Merthyr! What a blessing it was to me! I was young enough – and only just young enough – to take advantage of the new system. Had I been a year or two older I should have had to stay outside that learned paradise, looking rather hungrily at the gates that were closed against me. I was only a slip of a lad but I had enough sense to see what had happened. Merthyr was no longer a dead end. Merthyr was opportunity. I went for the opportunity with eager hands. At the end of my time at the County School I passed the Central Welsh Board’s examination and -manna from heaven! – I was awarded a County Exhibition of forty pounds a year. That was quite a big sum in those years and it eased my way to Aberystwyth to study for a university degree.
Fifty years on, as Francis made his way up to the school, during a visit to Merthyr, he mused on the opportunities his education had brought him:
I am one of those lucky people…I realised more clearly than ever how much I owed to the school… I made bold to go in. I found the headmaster, Dr Lewis, who received me with great kindness. We talked together and he went off and came back with a big, brown, covered book. ‘This book is a permanent register of pupils who have been at the school’, he said. ‘I’ll show you your name.’ He opened the book and my name, written in full, was on the first page That got me all warmed up with sentiment… Then Dr Lewis took me to see the Honours Board on which were set out the names of pupils, who had won academic distinction. And there in the glory of gilt lettering, was a record of my having taken a B.A. degree-a degree I went off to work for in Aberystwyth fifty-five years ago.
Francis also hints in one of his stories that he was aware that although some pupils enjoyed the new subjects like Latin and French, they didn’t stay on, having been persuaded by proud collier fathers that their future was in coal-mining.
Others reminisce on past times at the school, now demolished, but of blessed memory:
Ceinwen Jones (now Statter), writes: I went to The County from Penydarren School in 1954. After the Easter holiday the whirlwind that was Glynne Jones arrived to teach us music. He changed my life! He set up a choir when about half the school came back (out of uniform) on Friday evenings. We went on to sing works like The Messiah. Thanks to some excellent teaching I went to Cardiff University to study French and Italian and then trained as a journalist on the Western Mail and Echo. Although being away in Reading for over forty years I have never been out of touch with friends like Sandra Williams, Merryl Robbins, Helen O’Connor and the sadly missed Valerie Baker and Byron Jones.
County School Choir. Photo courtesy of Ceinwen Statter
Ian Hopkins, a former Head Boy (1959-1960), also went on to Cardiff – to take a B.Sc. degree. He returned to Merthyr for long service in teaching and in choral activities: I entered the County Grammar School in 1953 and spent seven happy years there. Two of the teachers – without belittling the others – had a profound effect on my life, viz Elwyn Thomas (Head of Maths) and the inimitable Glynne Jones. The school choir was more than merely a musical organisation: Friday evening 6.00 pm rehearsal was the focal point of the social life of the school. Glynne engendered in me, and in many of the others, a love of choral music that has endured. In the heyday of the Dowlais Male Choir a disproportionate number of members had sung in Glynne’s school choirs.
The school had a three-form entry, one Boys, one Girls and one Mixed. Segregation of the sexes was strict with a boys’ corridor and a girls’ corridor. My memories include playing fives – the fives courts were unique for schools in our area- playing rugby for the school teams and football in the school yard.
One story: when I was in Form 2 there was a heavy fall of snow and a number of us were throwing snowballs in the classroom. Mr Thomas came in and demanded to know who was responsible. Some confessed and were given detention. Others, including me, did not- the fear of Elwyn was the beginning of wisdom! Later that afternoon, I encountered him in town and confessed and asked that my name be added to the detention list. But when the list was called out later in the week, not one of the miscreants was on it. From then on, Elwyn Thomas could do no wrong in my eyes. Perhaps that’s why I became a Maths teacher!
Many others who followed similar or different paths as adults will, no doubt, have lasting memories of ‘The County’.
The school was closed and demolished in the 1970s and the site acquired for new housing. Regrettably, and shameful to report, few records of its existence and of its countless pupils remain. It has been said that ‘even the revered Honours Board ended up on a skip’- evidently unwanted in the new replacement ‘comprehensive’ school at the top of town, part of the most recent parliamentary plan for secondary education.
Nevertheless, some facts and figures survive in an old almanack, published by the Merthyr Express at the end of 1896.It contains an invaluable review of the development of education in Merthyr from the 1840s; this ends with the then most recent step in that development – The County Intermediate School and an insight into the local efforts that were made to achieve it. It was written by Mr E. Stephens, Clerk of the Board of Education in Merthyr Tydfil. The subject of improved secondary schooling for pupils up to the age of eighteen, had been discussed over decades in Parliament, where it was championed by Henry Austin Bruce, MP for Merthyr Tydfil, (future Lord Aberdare) and at the Glamorgan County Education Department in Cardiff. A new century was nigh before it materialised:
The question of Welsh Intermediate Education excited as deep an interest at Merthyr as it did in other parts of Wales and no time was lost in taking measures to secure the boon conferred by the Act of Parliament (i.e. The Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889) for the creation of these schools. On the 18th of November that year, a conference was held at the Board Room of the Workhouse, over which Mr W. Morgan JP, then High Constable, presided. It was decided to ask the County Committee to make Merthyr a centre for one of the schools- to accommodate 100 boys and 80 girls… After much negotiation a site embracing two acres of freehold land was finally secured in the Clock Field at Penydarren for £1200, Colonel Morgan, the owner, contributing £300 out of the amount for the building fund. A public meeting, in aid of the scheme was held at the Temperance Hall on March 20th 1891, Lord Aberdare presiding. A premium of £25 was offered for the successful plan, but the one chosen, by a Mr Crombie of London, proved to be far too expensive. The committee then obtained a second competition, on the basis of £25 per head. The plan of Mr E. Lingen Barker of Hereford was selected. The tender of Mr J. Williams of Swansea was accepted for the erection of the schools, but before the buildings were completed and opened for scholars the planned cost had run up to £6,198 3s 2d of which the architect received £464 14s 6d; the clerk of works £128 6s and the contractors the balance. Of this account £1,557 2s was raised by local subscriptions and the county fund provided the rest. (The fifty donors and the amounts donated are listed).
Alderman Thomas Williams JP is the chairman of the local governing body and the following comprise the teaching staff of the schools. Headmaster, Mr Charles Owen M.A. salary £100 a year with a capitation of £2 per year on each boy; first assistant master Mr W.H. Topham M.A., salary £160; second assistant master, Mr A.J. Perman M.A., salary £130; first mistress, Miss Edith Heppel who won a B.A. degree at Oxford but did not receive it as that university does not confer degrees upon women, salary £180 a year; second mistress, Miss Kate Thomas, salary £100 a year. The schools were opened for work on October 12th 1896, but a ceremonial opening is to take place on January 11th, 1897.
The school (i.e. pupils, staff and buildings) established itself in the Clock Field just before the start of the 20th century, in the soon-to-be-incorporated ‘town’ of Merthyr Tydfil.
Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive
Mary Owen.
Who attended the former Port Talbot County Intermediate School (1945- 52)
With thanks to Betty Harrington for the gift of the almanack, and to Ceinwen Statter, Ian Hopkins and the late J.O. Francis for the memories.
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.
The Rev J Carroll, the Catholic priest, resided on the Glebeland. He used to write a political letter to the Silurian weekly. Taliesin Williams’ residence was in Castle Street, but the schoolroom entrance for pupils was in Castle Field Lane. He had the most prominent school and the reputation for being somewhat too strict. My recollection of him, however, is quite clear, that he did not punish severely without great provocation. I can acknowledge that he gave me a slap once, and once only, but that it was also fully deserved must also be acknowledged.
As far as can now be recalled not one of his pupils can be named as alive now, except the writer. The late Mr Thomas Jenkins, of Pant, was supposed to be the last – but I am still left. The last of the family of that generation, Miss Elizabeth Williams, died about a year ago in the vicinity of London.
A Mr Shaw also had a school on the other side of the same lane. His son was an artist. John Thomas (Ieuan Ddu) can also be hazily recalled as keeping a school, but more vividly as a bass singer.
Mr John Millar, who, in conjunction with his brother Robert, carried on the brewery at Pontycapel, kept the Wheat Sheaf for many years, and afterwards moved to the Lamb. There was also a weaver, of the name of Wilkins, about the Glebeland, one of whose daughters married Mr W E Jones, the artist. The other daughter married and emigrated. The Merthyr Library and Reading Room started in the house at the corner of Castle Street and Glebeland.
Upon coming up to the Brecon Road from Caepantywyll, if we had gone on to Gwaelodygarth it would have led us past the entrance to the “Cottage” and Penydarren farm yard, past which the road leads to Penybryn and Pant, but keeping around by the Penydarren Park wall we came to the road to Dowlais close to the Penydarren turpike gate.
Mr Richard Forman, when manager of the Penydarren Works, resided at the “Cottage”. Mr William Davies, of the firm of Meyrick and Davies, lived there subsequently, and then Mr John Daniel Thomas, many years the high bailiff of the Merthyr County Court. Mr Grenfell, when the manager of Penydarren, resided at Gwaunfarren. Mr Benjamin Martin followed him (moving from the yard there) when becoming manager. Prior to this I always heard it called the Dairy. Occasionally one of the partners remained a short time at Penydarren House, but the gardener (named Price) used to sell the produce raised there.
Gwaelodygarth Fach a.k.a. “The Cottage”. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive
It was at Penydarren Ironworks that the first iron rails were rolled. They were known as the “fish-bellied” pattern. Tredgold, the authority upon the strength of iron, had a piece of iron supplied him with “Penydarren” upon it, by a firm of merchants in London, to whom he applied for a specimen of Welsh iron for experimental purposes. This fact is recorded in his treatise on the strength of iron.
There were numerous variants of the game which can be traced as far back as the sixteenth century, called ‘Buck, Buck’; it was played in Europe and the near East. The game appears in the bottom right hand corner of the painting ‘Children’s Games’, (1560), by Pieter Bruegel (The Elder) right.
From St David’s School I went to the Higher Gradeschool in Caedraw. For boys whose parents did not send them away to school-and very few parents in Merthyr sent their children away for education- the Higher Grade was the limit the town offered us and it could not offer us much because it wasn’t linked to a university. For a boy who wanted to go on learning, Merthyr was a blind alley, a dead end. Then a rumour came flying about amongst us boys- flying for some of us like a bird with bright wings- a new kind of school was to be opened in Merthyr – a County Intermediate School that would provide secondary education up to quite a high level. And what a blessing the school was to Merthyr! What a blessing it was to me! I was young enough – and only just young enough – to take advantage of the new system. Had I been a year or two older I should have had to stay outside that learned paradise, looking rather hungrily at the gates that were closed against me. I was only a slip of a lad but I had enough sense to see what had happened. Merthyr was no longer a dead end. Merthyr was opportunity. I went for the opportunity with eager hands. At the end of my time at the County School I passed the Central Welsh Board’s examination and -manna from heaven! – I was awarded a County Exhibition of forty pounds a year. That was quite a big sum in those years and it eased my way to Aberystwyth to study for a university degree.
