Tag: Pontmorlais

The Morlais Brook – part 2

by Clive Thomas

From here in pre-industrial times the brook continued in its efforts to cut deeply into the country rock, passing  Cae Racca, the fields of the Hafod Farm and down into Cwm Rhyd y bedd. Unfortunately with the construction of the new Ivor Works in 1839, this area became the tipping ground of the thousands of tons of waste produced by the furnaces, forges and rolling mills. Over the next century the whole form of the land became radically altered with tip and railway embankment obscuring its course. It eventually emerged  into ‘The Cwm’, as a poor remnant of  its former self, passing in the mid-nineteenth  century the Dowlais  Old Brewery and Gellifaelog House on its way down to Gellifaelog Bridge. This had been built in the second half of the eighteenth century to carry the Abernant to Rhyd-y-blew turnpike Road and would eventually become the location which every local would know as ‘The Bont’.

The Nant Morlais flowing through ‘The Cwm’ in the 1940s. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive.
A map showing the Nant Morlais passing through the Bont and showing Gellifaelog House and Gellifaelog Bridge

A little below here, it had its junction with Nant Dowlais on the banks of which the first Dowlais furnace had been constructed in 1759. Two centuries later, in the 1960’s with the building of the Heads of the Valleys Road and the general landscaping of the 1980’s the stream’s way through the ‘Cwm’ was again changed quite comprehensively,  although shrub and tree planting rendered the valley more aesthetically pleasing. Unfortunately, it is only the archive map or faint ancient photographs which now help inform us of its rich and varied history.

Site of confluence of the Morlais and Dowlais Brooks. The old turnpike road went to the left, crossing the Morlais at Gellifaelog Bridge. The New Road was originally one of the railway inclines of the Dowlais Works. Photo Clive Thomas

Before being confined to its anonymous, culverted bed, the brook’s surface course from The Bont was once again encroached upon by massive tipping from the Dowlais Ironworks. On the opposite bank, once the fields of Gellifaelog and Gwaunfarren Farms, what was to become Penydarren High Street would be established. This ribbon development of dwellings, shops and places of worship was constructed above the steep valley side here and would eventually form a fundamental link between the growing settlements of Merthyr Tydfil and Dowlais. As early as  1811 though,  I.G. Wood’ s print of the Penydarren Ironworks shows our mountain cataract to be already much altered, confined and despoiled by the growth of that iron manufactory. Today, the location is completely transformed from the area of desolation we knew in the 1960’s and ‘70’s. It is landscaped, green and partly wooded but it is a great pity the planners could not have given it a more inspirational name than Newlands Park.

The Morlais Brook flowing behind Penydarren High Street in the 1940s. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

Below the site of the works its course altered a little again and helped define that spur of high ground the Romans had chosen, probably in the early second century AD as the site for one of their forts. I am sure these ancient invaders would have had no inkling of the iniquities that men of later centuries would perpetrate on the stream and landscape hereabouts. Today, Nant Morlais  reveals itself only briefly to the rear of the Theatre Royal and Trevithick memorial before disappearing at Pontmorlais, the location of another of those early turnpike bridges.

An 1851 map showing the course of the Morlais Brook through Pontmorlais
The Morlais Brook at Pontmorlais in the 1940s. Wesley Chapel is in the background. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

Hidden behind the buildings of the town’s Upper High Street there is one final reminder of the stream’s rural and unsullied past. Mill Lane, more recently the rather secret location of Mr. Fred Bray’s sweet factory, is the site of a water mill where our agricultural forefathers ground the corn grown in the fields of the local farms.

A map from the 1860s showing the old mill.

Whilst the old buildings and general dereliction which not so long ago framed the stream’s last few hundred metres have long disappeared and been replaced by car parking and civic buildings, a large portion of Abermorlais Tip remains to mark the point where the waters of  Nant Morlais coalesce with those of the parent Taf. Although partly confined to a subterranean existence, through the more recent efforts of Man, ‘The Stinky’ has been able to rid itself of the foul and fetid mantle of its past.

Where it all ends. The confluence of the Morlais with the Taf. Photo Clive Thomas

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.

From the work room of Mr Wm James, not only was there no storage or openings on that side of the High Street, but with the exception of three small shops adjoining the one on the corner of Glebeland Street, there was not a building of any kind.

The nearest i.e., the one first come to on the way up was the shop of a hairdresser named Davies. If I remember rightly, Bears Grease was considered the best one used on the human hair, and this Davies, upon one opening, had a bear hung up outside his shop, after the manner of butchers hanging calves brains was afterwards to be had, but whether the result of his enterprise was advantageous I know not.

An 1839 advertisement for Bear’s Grease

Either in the next, or following shop above, a Mr McGregor sold garden seeds, and the corner shop belonged to Mr Edward Morgan, grocer, who had a wholesale trade too. Mr Morgan resided on the other side of the High Street. He was connected by marriage, I think, with the Jones’s and Evans’s of the Bank.

The Post Office was on the corner of Glebeland Street and High Street, on the same site as at present, but before describing it, or going further up we will return to Gillar Street and come up on the right hand side of High Street.

First there was a grocer’s shop, and then the Crown Inn – a Mrs Richards was the landlady. Above this was the druggist’s shop kept by Mrs Jenkins, the mother of the late Dr T J Dyke. She also had two sons of the name of Jenkins. John, a clergy-man, who went to Natal, was  Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, a canon of the Church, and became vicar of Aberdare. He was the most charitable of men, but the most absent-minded as a boy. Upon asking what he intended being, his reply, in all earnestness, was “the Bishop of Merthyr”. His brother James became a Roman Catholic priest, but did not live many years.

An advert from 1835 mentioning Mrs Jenkins’ Druggist shop

Next above was a draper’s shop. Mr John James kept it, and made money enough to go into the wholesale trade in Manchester, but returned in a few years to Merthyr, and built a large premises opposite which is Victoria Street and called the Cloth Hall.

The Cloth Hall. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

There was a yard with wooden doors, and on the other side a grocer’s shop was kept by Mr Christopher James. Upon Mr James’s removal this business went into the hands of Mr John Jones, who had been with Mr James for some time. Mr James himself the for a while carried on a wine and spirit business near the Bush Hotel, but only for a short time, as he removed to Swansea, and went into the coal trade.

This Mr Christopher James was a brother of the Mr William James already alluded to, and another brother was Mr Job James, a doctor living in Pontmorlais, one of whose sons, Mr Frank James, was for so many years clerk to the Merthyr Union. Mr Christopher James has several sons. Vice-Chancellor William Milbourne James was, I think, the oldest (see http://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=3084). Another was Mr David James, a tanner living on the side of the tramroad in Bethesda Street or Pontstorehouse.

Another son, Christopher, was in the shop with his father, and upon giving up a building on the canal bank which had been used as a storehouse for flour etc., 60 guineas were found hidden there, reputed to have belonged to him. Another son was the harbour master of Swansea 40 years ago, and his son succeeded him in that capacity for a short time. One of this Mr James’s daughters married a Mr Brock, the minister of the Unitarian Chapel in Swansea, and another Mr Joseph Henry Rowland, of the bank in Neath.

To be continued at a later date……

Merthyr: Then and Now

TYDFIL HALL CHAPEL

Below is a photograph of the opening of Tydfil Hall Forward Movement Chapel in Pontmorlais on 9 May 1907.

It was designed by Mr Arthur D Marks and built by Mr William Watts of Dowlais. The building cost £1,300 and the excavation of the site £2,700.

Unfortunately, the cause was not a great success, and the chapel closed in 1930. Following its closure, the building was used as the Labour Exchange and later as the Unemployment Benefit office. It is was left derelict following a fire, and the building has now been demolished, just leaving the facade, as part of a new housing development, as the photo taken in 2019 below shows.

Most of us remember it as the Labour Exchange/Benefits Office but I wonder how many of you knew that it was originally a chapel?

E T Davies – Another Musical Giant

Evan Thomas Davies was born on 10 April 1878 at 41 Pontmorlais, Merthyr Tydfil. His father, George, was a barber, and owned a shop in South Street, Dowlais. The family was a musical one; George was precentor in Hermon Chapel, Dowlais, for nearly a quarter of a century, and his mother and his mother, Gwenllian (née Samuel) had a fine contralto voice. Evan was brought up in Dowlais, and he was given private tuition coming heavily under the influence of the famous local conductor and organist, Harry Evans. (see http://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=713)

At the age of sixteen, he passed the Advanced Honours Certificate of the Associated Board of the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music. So successful was he in the exam that Sir Charles Villiers-Stanford, a renowned composer, and one of the founders of the Royal College of Music, persuaded him to pursue a musical career. The young Evan didn’t take his advice however, and took a job as an office clerk in Merthyr.

During this time however, he became the accompanist for both Harry Evans’ and Dan Davies’ choirs, and in 1898, he was asked to accompany a party of singers from Wales to the USA, and on his return, he finally decided to pursue a career in music. He soon was awarded the fellowship of the Royal College of Organists, and his reputation as an important musician in Merthyr was cemented during the first few years of the 1900’s performing several Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the Dowlais Operatic Society, and was acclaimed as the successor to Harry Evans as Merthyr’s foremost musician.

In 1903 he was appointed as organist at Pontmorlais Chapel, Merthyr Tydfil, and also became part-time singing teacher at the Merthyr County School. In 1904 he moved to Merthyr from Dowlais, and in 1906, when Harry Evans moved to Liverpool, E T Davies moved into his house ‘Cartrefle’, which housed a three-manual pipe organ.

After gaining his F.R.C.O. his services as a solo organist were in great demand, and he was said to have inaugurated about a hundred new organs in Wales and England. In 1920 he was appointed the first full-time director of music of the University College, Bangor, where he was responsible for numerous musical activities, and collaborated with (Henry) Walford Davies, Aberystwyth, to enhance knowledge of music in a wide area under the auspices of the university’s Council of Music. In 1943 he retired and moved to Aberdare, where he spent the rest of his life composing, adjudicating and broadcasting.

He first came into prominence as a composer after winning the first prize for ‘Ynys y Plant’ in the national eisteddfod held in London in 1909, and although he was not a very prolific composer, and tended to regard composing merely as a hobby, he had a beneficial influence upon Welsh music for more than half a century. Besides writing a few songs, he also composed part-songs, anthems and works for various musical instruments and instrumental groups, and about 40 of his tunes, chants and anthems are to be found in various collections of tunes.

He recognised the excellent work on folk-songs that John Lloyd Williams had done before him at Bangor, and he was one of the first Welsh musicians to find sufficient merit in the folk-songs to arrange them for voice or instrument. His arrangements of over a hundred of these songs, (many of them produced when the composer was in old age) have great artistic merit. He also took an interest in Welsh national songs, and was co-editor with Sydney Northcote of The National Songs of Wales (1959).

He married, 31 August 1916, Mary Llewellyn, youngest daughter of D.W. Jones, Aberdare. He died at home in Aberdare on Christmas Day 1969.

Merthyr Memories: Memories of Dowlais – part 2

by Sarnws

Ivor  Street  in particular had a reputation for being  generous to beggars, who  in those days would  just walk up the middle of the road, often silent, cap in hand, and the children would run in to tell their mothers, who in turn would spare a few coppers.

Ivor Street in the 1970’s, shortly before it was demolished. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

This was in the thirties. By now we had moved from “Merthyr” which generally describes Merthyr itself,  Dowlais, Penydarren,  Heolgerrig, Pant,  Georgetown  Twynyrodyn   etc.  One day I dashed in from the street, quite excited, to tell my mother that there was a beggar, cap in hand, walking down the middle of the road just chanting “Ho Hum, Ho Hum” repetitively.  She was as excited as I was and  in turn dashed out to put something in his hat.  It was a link with “home”, for he was well known to her.

I remember that beggars were quite a common sight.  My father in the very early nineteen hundreds, before going to work as an apprentice blacksmith, worked in Toomeys.  He was paying in to the bank one day when a beggar who used to push himself around, mounted on a small flat trolley with the aid if two short sticks, was paying in. When he reached the counter, the clerk checking in not an insignificant amount asked if he had had a good day.  The reply was, “Average”.

On a few occasions at about 8.30 pm on a Saturday there would be a message from one of the houses in Pontsarn or Pontsicill, to the effect that some friends had dropped in so would Mr. Toomey send up the brace of pheasants he had hanging. My father would be sent on the errand, having been given two-pence for the tram, and with the kind instruction that he needn’t come back.

Until the day she died, sadly quite young, if someone asked my mother when making her way to the train for her weekly visit, where she was going, the reply was always the same, “Home for the day”.

I remember my father, when  on a visit to Merthyr when Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles were still there, showing me the  Trevithick  memorial  in Pontmorlais, and being brought up with knowledge of the social and industrial heritage of  “Merthyr” and its contribution to the world.

Is it possible when the light is just right that a mirage of the Coal Arch can be seen?

Does the glow from the Bessemer converter still light the night sky?

When I  retired, thirty years ago I took the elderly aunt of a colleague to lunch in the Teapot Cafe at the end of the Station Arcade, which was the main exit  from Brunel’s  station. A lady came in with her husband, nodded to me and smiled.  She turned to her husband and I could see her say, ”I know that gentleman”. I could not place her, and just nodded as we left.

The Station Arcade in the 1980s. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

A little while later I saw her again in the company of friends or family one of whom I knew.  I was drawn into their company.  The lady had been living on Orpington as teacher and then head teacher for thirty-five years, so had not encountered me in that time.  It transpired that she remembered me from Dowlais  school, fifty years before.

My son has a silver pocket watch and chain, given to me by my uncle, of the same christian name just before he died.  It was bequeathed to him by an uncle, again of the same name.  His aunt had it serviced for him by the clockmaker half way up the arcade.  That must have been about 1920.

As you entered that clockmaker’s premises, facing you was a huge grandfather clock.  Integral with the  pendulum was a cylinder of mercury.  This expanded and contracted with temperature change, compensating for the temperature variation in the length of the pendulum rod, seemingly so simple a concept, but how brilliant.

I was telling a colleague, who had been brought up in Dowlais, but previously unknown to me, that I could remember standing under the railway bridge at the end of Station Road, sheltering from the rain, and watching the Fish and Chip shop opposite, in Victoria Street I think, burning down. He turned and said that he had been there too. That had happened, I think, in the winter of 38/39. Thirty-five years  or so before.

I have tooted the car horn many times on Johnny Owen, out for his morning run.  I always got a wave of the hand in return.  What a number of boxers and other sportspeople Merthyr has produced. The last years of my working life were in Merthyr, and being steeped in its history by my parents, it was interesting to encounter family names which were familiar to me, particularly the Spanish ones, as I was familiar with their family histories to some extent.

My parents are buried in Pant Cemetery, as are Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles, Cousins and more.  Whenever I visit I cannot but drive around Dowlais, now much changed, but a place to which I am still drawn.

Except for one year, October ‘38 to September ‘39, when I  attended  Dowlais  Junior  School, and was a  patient for three months in the childrens’  hospital which occupied the original Sandbrook  House, I have not lived in Merthyr since I was a baby. When I was discharged from Sandbrook House I had been indoors for nearly the whole of my stay and insisted on riding up as far as the Hollybush Hotel on the open top deck of the tram.  The era of the tram ended very shortly afterwards.

Sandbrook House. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Collection

I seem to have read or heard somewhere that nature has implanted within you a sacred and indissoluble attachment to the place of your birth and infant nurture, perhaps Tydfil’s martyrdom has created this aura about Merthyr which evokes such hiraeth.

Memories of Old Merthyr

Whilst looking through back issues of the Merthyr Express, local historian Michael Donovan came across a remarkable feature which ran across several editions of the newspaper in 1901. The article concerns  reminiscences of Merthyr dating back to the 1830’s. Unfortunately, there is no indication who the person who wrote these memories is. Michael has passed copies of these articles on to me to feature on this blog. I will post extracts periodically, starting with the transcription below.

Merthyr Tydfil, erstwhile the metropolis of the iron manufacture, although that proud distinction no longer applies, is yet progressing and prosperous. Being able to recall it as was so many years ago, it is my intention to describe things that can be remembered, and to say in a gossiping garrulous manner what may instruct and amuse the present generation.

I think it was in 1834 I first saw Merthyr, coming by coach from Cardiff. The impression upon me was strange, for until then all ideas of existence had been gathered in a city, and the transition from such to a long, straggling village was very great. From Cardiff one set of horses ran to the Bridgewater Arms, and another on to Merthyr. The starting place in Cardiff was the Angel Hotel, which stood about the position of the Bute Estate Offices at the present, and the finish was at the Castle Hotel, or the booking office which was adjoining it on the Pontmorlais side. The coach stopped at the Bush Hotel to set down some passengers, and unless memory plays me false, the coachman’s name was Howells.

The Castle Hotel in Merthyr in the mid 1800’s

There was a great dearth of houses. Anything except workmen’s cottages were very few, and, as a rule, occupied by their owners. Just call to mind what Merthyr would be without Thomastown and Twynyrodyn, the site of the present Market-house and its surrounding streets a field, a field where the present station is (Cae Gwyn), a market garden where the lower part of the station yard is, no water except what could be had from a well here and there, no drainage, no police, and I almost think no gas works.

Further afield, Troedyrhiw had few houses, Pontyrhun was not, except a pumping engine and residence for the attendant. His name was Gibbons, and the engine supplied the Glamorganshire Canal from the river. Not above a dozen houses in Abercanaid; and as for Cefn, if you could find a cottage to spare, provided any means were used to come to Merthyr, no less than three turnpike gates would have to be passed through, to two of which a toll would be paid; and if, instead of turning round to enter the ‘village’, anyone went a short distance up the road to Penydarren, another toll would be demanded.

The old Penydarren Toll House (front) at the bottom of The Avenue. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

And yet with these conditions and surroundings –

“Content could spread a charm,
Redress the place, and all its faults disarm.”

To be continued at a later date…..

The Holm Oak in Bethesda Street

by Clive Thomas

It was different when it was planted I suppose, whenever that was. Now it stands near a modern, regulated cross roads dedicated to ensuring the smooth running of traffic from one side of the town to the other. You see only a few pedestrians here and vehicle owners drive past, or sometimes frustrated, are required to halt and give their attention to the traffic lights. It does have some other green company now though from more recently Council-planted shrubs and small trees, but for many years it would have stood somewhat incongruously alone, alongside a very busy roadway. Its age is difficult to guess but it must certainly have been witness to many changes in the surrounding area. It stands sentinel with a strangely oriented boxer’s statue and the small but colourful memorial to a demolished chapel which only hint at the area’s rich heritage.

Aerial photograph of Bethesda Street. The Holm Oak can be seen prominently in the centre of the photograph, with Bethesda Chapel to the right and Abermorlais School at the bottom right. Photo courtesy of the Alan George archive.

This thoroughfare was originally called Jackson’s Street, after the contractor who was commissioned in 1793 by the Dowlais Ironworks to build the stone arched bridge which still straddles the River Taff nearby. Although giving the rapidly increasing population of Georgetown and Heolgerrig, an alternative means of crossing the river from the more famous Iron Bridge, this bridge’s main purpose was to carry the tram road from the Dowlais Works to the canal warehouse and wharf on the Glamorganshire Canal. The tramroad would remain a vital link for the Dowlais Company for many years, and thousands of tons of iron would have been carried this way by teams of horse drawn wagons. As the town developed and more cottages built, junctions were created here, with Quarry Row leading into the riverside community of Caepantywyll and the Vulcan Road climbing the slope to Brewery Street and Sunnybank. Towards Pontmorlais, Bethesda Chapel had been built in 1811 and its name would eventually replace that of Mr. Jackson. Over a period of years, the area became overlooked by the tip of furnace waste from the Penydarren Ironworks, which continued to grow towards the river for most of the first half of the nineteenth century. It was between this British Tip, Jackson’s Bridge and the Taff that the notorious area of slum dwellings called ‘China’ would grow up.

Bethesda Street in 1967. The Holm Oak is clearly visible. Photo courtesy of the Alan George archive.

In the 1970’s however, great changes were taking place hereabouts. The re-configuration of the road system and the construction of a new Taff bridge required the demolition of many adjacent houses. Lawn Terrace, Garden Street, Paynters Terrace, along with The Old Tanyard Inn and Bethesda Chapel all disappeared. The removal of a substantial portion of the British Tip meant that whole area underwent considerable change.  Surprisingly and against all odds, the tree survived and remained healthy. As a result of representations from the Merthyr and District Naturalists’ Society, whose members became concerned about its survival, it was made the subject of a Tree Preservation Order under the 1974 Wildlife and Countryside Act.

Bethesda Street from the British Tip in 1989. The Holm Oak stands proud at the centre of the photograph. Courtesy of Clive Thomas

Quercus ilex, the Holm Oak belongs in Mediterranean climes and unlike our more familiar Sessile (Qercuspetraea) and Pedunculate (Quercusrobur) species, it is evergreen. Holm is the ancient English name for holly bush and it is indeed so like a holly that it is often mistaken for one. Its sombre evergreen foliage casts a very dense shade that nothing can grow beneath it and reflects the climatic conditions found in its native lands. There, the winter is rainy but fairly warm, while summers are dry and hot so thick waxy foliage is required to check undue loss of moisture. The tree is also unusual amongst the oaks in that its acorns take two years to mature. The species was first introduced into Britain in the sixteenth century at Mamhead Park, Devon and a large population is to be found on the Isle of Wight. It has naturalised in a number of areas of southern Britain.

One can only speculate at how it might have arrived in Merthyr Tydfil. The fairly close proximity of Cyfarthfa Park might offer one explanation. Several exotic species were imported by the Crawshay Family to enhance the landscaped parkland which surrounded their newly built gothic home. There are numerous Turkey Oaks (Quercuscerrris) on the banks of the Taf-Fechan near Cefn Coed which might have had their origins within the confines of the park. It is possible that this tree might have arrived as part of a consignment of saplings or perhaps even grown from a single acorn. Ironically now however, the species is thought to damage aspects of biodiversity in this country and is listed as an alien invader. Despite our own specimen’s somewhat anomalous existence, I hope it remains in situ for many more years.

The Holm Oak in February 2019

The Decline of Merthyr

In 1859, the Penydarren Ironworks closed. 160 years ago today (26 February 1859), the remarkable article transcribed below, written in anticipation of the closure appeared in the Merthyr Telegraph. It makes fascinating reading as the language used is so striking and almost poetic…a far cry from today’s brand of journalism.

Over the thresholds of a thousand houses stream the long and darkening shadows which forerun events of a stern and saddening character. In a few months that fierce light which so long has glared around Penydarren will be invisible, and the incessant clang of iron and harsh vibrations of monster machinery will no longer be heard. Penydarren works will belong to the past.

For several weeks the inhabitants of this town and neighbourhood heard of the rumoured sale of Penydarren works with incredulity. They could not believe that so great an establishment would be broken up, the works fall into decay, and the men scattered to the four winds of heaven. Yet, at last, the dread truth has forced itself upon our convictions, and we now doubt not that the end of Penydarren is at hand.

The Dowlais Iron Co., holding large works on the extreme edge of the mineral basin, have been for some time progressing with less than its usual vigour in consequence of a deficient supply of mine and coal. It is true new pits have been sunk at Cwmbargoed, but it will be two or three years before they will begin to yield, the enormous depth forbidding any earlier success, though the men are incessantly employed. Thus it became a serious consideration with the Trustees, where, and by what means, the requisite supply should be obtained from to meet the demand. The adjoining mine and coal field of the Penydarren Co. and the known desire of Mr. W. Forman to part with it, offered a solution of the difficulty, and hence, after a consultation and discussion by the principals of each place, one has been merged into the other, and Dowlais has become worthier even than before of being styled the largest iron-works in the world.

We may anticipate that on the opening of the new mill – a mill unequalled in the locality, a large number of additional workmen will be employed; the miners and colliers also may be expected to continue working as usual; but, we apprehend, there will still be many unemployed, and the change will tend to deteriorate the value of house property considerably in Penydarren, and the upper part of Merthyr, from Pontmorlais to Tydfil’s Well. There can be no doubt but that there will be much suffering in one way or another. Young men, full of vigour, may try their fortunes elsewhere broad shoulders and muscular arms will never fail to obtain their owners bread and cheese, but the old men, the semi-pensioners, the half used up veterans, cannot be expected to seek a subsistence in other districts, cannot be expected but to crawl, feeble worn-out beings, into the last resort of humble life – the Workhouse.

In addition to this, the first step towards a decline, we see evidences around us of a gloomy character. The lease of the Dowlais works is said to last only during the minority of the Marquis of Bute. When he comes of age a new lease, under new and perhaps impossible conditions, may be required.

It is also rumoured, on what authority we know not, that the Plymouth iron-works are for sale, and no one, acquainted with Mr. Hill, will hear this without fearing that the change of ownership, by whomsoever made, cannot be for the benefit of the workmen. No matter how good the next employer may be, new brooms have a tendency to sweep clean, and brush away old and good usages, pensions, perquisites and benefits to an alarming extent.

Again, at the Cyfarthfa works things wear an alarming aspect. The lease is yet unsettled. Mr. Crawshay has stated the sum he will give, and we all know that he will abide by his word, and blow out the whole of the furnaces rather than yield. And let us add that were Mr. Crawshay, unfortunately for us all, to be succeeded by another, we might find the system of iron-making on the hills introduced into Cyfarthfa, with its attendant Truck shops, which, God forbid for the sake of poor humanity! To this Truck the Crawshays have ever been firm opponents, much to their honour and the welfare of the town.

All these shadows warn us to be prepared for coming evils – to be on the alert towards lessening the trials of disastrous times – to prepare our several homes against the menacing storm.

Merthyr is a town called into existence by the discovery of the minerals underneath. With their exhaustion it fades as rapidly as it rose.

In these facts we trace the presages of decline. The tree which resists the skill of the gardener may exist for a time, unimproving, unprogressive, but when the storm comes the resistance is but weak, and beneath the tempest it falls!