Caedraw

by Carolyn Jacob

Following on from the last post here’s a potted history of Caedraw by Carolyn Jacob.

Caedraw means ‘the field beyond’, as it was just outside the traditional village of Merthyr Tydfil and a district beside the River Taff. Although in the eighteenth century it was just a field, as soon as Merthyr started to develop an iron industry this area had houses erected on it for workers and it soon became a built up area. Caedraw first started to have houses from 1800 onwards. Streets here included Taff Street, Upper Taff Street, Picton Street and streets with curious names, such as Isle of Wight and Adam and Eve Court. There was once an old woollen mill in Mill Street. This district was bordered by the River Taff and the Plymouth Feeder.

Caedraw from the 1851 Public Health Map
The same area in 1919

Along the banks of the river as well as a woollen mill there was a tannery, a laundry, a gas works, together with shops and public houses. The Taff was at its most polluted here, having industrial and household waste, together with the black waters of the Morlais Brook, ‘the Stinky’, carrying the filth of Dowlais and Penydarren Ironworks. Thankfully the herons on its banks find the river much cleaner today.

A hundred years ago Caedraw School was multicultural with English, Irish, Italian, Jewish and Welsh pupils. The old Caedraw School was built in 1872 and had some very famous ex pupils, such as the freeman of Merthyr Tydfil and miner’s leader, Arthur Horner. The school was situated by the old gas works.

Caedraw School with St Tydfil’s Church behind. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

Because the district was very near to the river Taff, the first laundry in Merthyr Tydfil was set up here but sadly the workers here succumbed to cholera in the 1849 epidemic and this resulted in the Parish publishing a newspaper advertisement to tell people not to boil their water. According to the 1881 census there was a woollen factory between numbers 37 and 42 Picton Street. There were a number of public houses, lodging houses, and a bakehouse in Vaughan Street.

This built up area consisting of lots of small courtyards was very densely populated. The houses themselves were very clean, but small and without any modern conveniences. The old rambling buildings along tightly packed streets of Caedraw became very old fashioned and in need of repair by the 1950s. Merthyr Tydfil Borough Council decided to redevelop Caedraw and build modern flats here to replace the old houses. From 1959 onwards old Caedraw was gradually pulled down but not without a certain feeling of sadness, despite a headline in the Western Mail on 24 April 1959, ’12 Acres of ugliness being razed, Merthyr’s biggest face lift. More than 200 houses, two shops, two pubs and a club were put under the sledge-hammer in one of the biggest redevelopment schemes in South Wales’.

An aerial view of Caedraw before it was redeveloped. Caedraw School can be seen in the bottom right hand corner with the gasworks in front of it, next to the river. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

The official opening of the Caedraw ‘Central Housing Redevelopment Project’ was on Thursday 22 April, 1965 by James Griffiths, Secretary of State for Wales. The Caedraw Scheme of 193 dwellings consisted of 66 one-bedroomed flats in the 12 storey point block. There are 64 two-bedroom maisonettes, 24 three-bedroomed maisonettes and 8 bed-sitting room flats in 8 4-storey blocks. The remainder of the accommodation is contained in two 3-storey blocks containing 19 two-bedroomed maisonettes, 9 one-bedroom flats and 3 bed-sitting room flats. The tender of George Wimpey and Co. Ltd. was accepted by the Council in January 1963 and work on the flats commenced four months later in April. The completion date in the contract was April 1965 but the scheme was completed and handed over six months ahead of this date.

Caedraw in 1965 after the redevelopment. Photo from the official ‘Opening’ programme of the Caedraw Project

Each block of flats was named after an important figure in the history of Wales. St Tydfil’s Court (the Celtic Saint buried here), Portal House (Portal wrote the report of the Royal Commission of 1935 into the state of Merthyr Tydfil), Wilson Court  (Harold Wilson was Labour Prime Minister when the flats were opened), Buckland House (Lord Buckland a wealthy financier born in Merthyr), Attlee House (Clement Attlee Labour Prime Minister after 1945), Hywel House (Hywel Dda was a Welsh King who had the laws of the country written down), Trevithick House (Trevithick was the first to use a locomotive to transport iron from Penydarren and unwillingly carried passengers too).

Merthyr’s Bridges: Caedraw Cart Bridge

By the end of the 19th Century, the only means of crossing the River Taff in Merthyr, south of the Iron Bridge, was by means of a the Rhydycar Ford – little more than set of stepping stones.

An extract from an 1860s map showing the Rhydycar Ford

This crossing was totally inadequate, as, except when the weather was exceptionally fine, the crossing was impassable and exceptionally dangerous. Indeed, it was reported as early as 1835, that a young man from Waunwyllt, having crossed the ford to visit his fiancée in Merthyr, upon returning to the spot to make his way home, found the ford flooded. In desperation, he took refuge in the warmth of the Caedraw kiln, but overcome by the heat, fell asleep and suffocated. For many years after this requests were made that a proper crossing be erected.

By 1890, no progress had been made, and indeed the minutes from the Board of Health’s meeting on 14 May 1890 show that the question of a bridge at Caedraw was still being raised, and that a Surveyor’s Report had in fact been carried out the previous year, but the Board decided that they had more important projects to carry out and that “the question of this Bridge be deferred for the present year”.

Wranglings over the bridge continued for another three years, until the Board finally decided to give the go-ahead for plans to be drawn up for a cart bridge to be built across the Taff at Caedraw with the proviso that the building of the bridge and approaches should cost no more than £450.

By November 1894, concrete foundations and masonry footings had been erected for the abutments for the new bridge, and orders had been placed for iron girders, iron flooring and timbers. The girders forming the main span of the bridge, with iron cross-members covered by the timber forming the base of the bridge. Timber was chosen to form the ‘flooring’ of the bridge over steel flooring suggested by the surveyor, as it was £39 cheaper to use wood than iron.

Within ten years however, this ‘false economy’ proved the surveyor correct, as the wooden flooring of the bridge was disintegrating badly. Throughout 1910 and 1911, arguments continued about repairing the bridge. Again it was suggested that steel flooring be laid on the bridge, but the Board decided that creosoting the timbers would suffice. In March 1938, however, the floor of the bridge collapsed and the bridge was closed to traffic. Even though it was eventually patched up and was put back into use again, the bridge was condemned in 1951, and it was demolished in 1966.

In retrospect, the bridge was doomed from the start. In order to cut costs, the Board of Health insisted on using the wrong materials, and indeed, the materials that they did use were all second-hand, and technically unsound.

Caedraw Cart Bridge. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

Sinclair C5: Sir Clive’s motoring mis-step

by Richard Bremner

Follow the death of Sir Clive Sinclair recently, here is an article about one of his less successful inventions with a Merthyr connection….

The Sinclair C5 came in a cardboard box delivered to your door, it was built in a Hoover washing machine factory and it was narrow enough to drive down your hallway. Which many concluded was the best place for it.

This was a cheap new revolutionary vehicle for the masses, reckoned millionaire computer whiz Sir Clive Sinclair, whose qualifications for this forecast were founded on his successful launch of one of the earliest pocket calculators and the famous ZX Spectrum home computer. Well, the Sinclair C5 was certainly cheap compared to a normal car, and it certainly looked revolutionary. But not in a good way.

Genesis: 1979

Its emergence was the result of Sinclair’s long-running interest in electric cars, which lead to the start of the C1 project in 1979. Sinclair asked a former Radionics colleague Tony Wood Rogers to consult on the project, and design specialists Ogle to style it.

Ogle subsequently revealed that they never believed in the project, their concentration on its aerodynamic properties – critical for an electric vehicle, even with the modest 30mph target top speed of the C1 – resulting in an unhelpful weight gain that probably undid all the aerodynamic wins. That made the C1’s 30 mile range a near-impossible goal, despite a lightweight polypropylene body built only for one.

Better than a moped?

Sinclair’s aim was to build a better vehicle than a moped, and at a price vastly undercutting a car’s. But by spring 1983 he abandoned this project to raise more funds, undeterred by Ogle’s prophetic view that the C1 wouldn’t sell because its range was limited, it wasn’t weather-proof and it was too slow.

Sinclair raised £12 million by selling shares in Radionic, over £8 million of it dedicated to the newly formed Sinclair Vehicles. Within months the project was back on, and the Hoover domestic appliance company contracted to build the vehicle, as Sinclair preferred to call it, at its Welsh factory. And at the staggeringly optimistic rate of 8,000 a week – quantities to rival Ford.

Lotus engineering

The project got a boost of sorts when the government introduced legislation, lobbied for by bicycle-maker Raleigh, that allowed electrically-assisted two and three wheelers onto UK roads. But only at speeds up to 15mph. That the electric motor could only be as powerful as 250 Watts and the vehicle weigh no more than 60kg also had an unhelpful impact on Sinclair’s motor-assisted recumbent tricycle.

But within these limits, it was well-engineered, Lotus hired to develop the C5 from Wood Rogers’ prototype. Like a Lotus it had a backbone steel chassis, a welded composite two-piece body and it was built down to a weight. An electric fan motor drove a single speed, belt-driven gearbox and it was steered by handlebars that lay below you, where they were easy and relaxing to reach, an ingenious solution devised by Wood Rogers.

Sinclair C5 engine: you

But the main source of drive was not so much the motor as you, and the Sinclair’s big, square pedals. The C5 was simply a tricycle with a part-time 12-volt motor, and it should have been sold that way to avoid disappointment. But marketing it as a tricycle would never have scored the colossal publicity that came its way because it was presented as a car, all of this preceded by the usual pre-launch fanfare.

Spin it any way you like, but the Sinclair C5 launch was a disaster. Problem one was that it took place on January 10 1985, the cold not only reducing the range of its puny 12-volt battery but also treating the assembled hacks to the shivering reality of pedalling a C5 in the cold, wind and rain.

Problem two was the location. North London’s Alexandra Palace is an attractive venue, partly because it’s built on a hill. But it didn’t take long for the hacks, serial long-lunchers among them, to discover one of the C5’s many problems.

Hill-climbing often overloaded the motor to the point of cut-out – a state signalled by a forlorn electronic peeping – and when the motor wasn’t overworked a modest gradient would soon flatten the plastic trike’s battery. Some C5s didn’t decimate their batteries – but that was only because they didn’t work at all.

Still, orders came, but at nowhere near the rate needed to absorb the 8000-a-week torrent spilling from Hoover’s Merthyr Tydfil factory. There was plenty of brave talk from Sinclair Vehicles on the fizzing interest in their £399 transport revolution, and how better weather would help sales.

Surging criticism

But it wasn’t enough to staunch the surging criticism. Testers found the range was more like 10 miles rather than the claimed 20, and less on a clement day. They felt hugely vulnerable on the road, a feeling undiminished by the optional high-visibility mast, which added to the deep feelings of foolishness that swept over anyone stepping into this pedal-powered plastic bath.

Although that was nothing to the embarrassment you’d feel at fitting – and wearing – the Sinclair’s wet-weather gear, which consisted of fabric panels covering its sides and your legs, and a matching hooded anorak. Putting all this on would have added another 15 minutes to your dismally slow journey, and made you feel almost as humiliated as a naked hotel guest trapped in a lift.

There was no heater – although you’d soon get warm pedalling when the motor stopped whining – there was no reverse gear and it had the turning circle of the trucks threatening to squash it.

Beautifully designed… in parts

Examine the C5 in detail, though, and you’ll spot some subtle industrial elegance. It wasn’t a beautiful design, but parts of it were beautifully designed. Gus Desbarats, a Royal College of Art graduate hired to style the C5, later described his contribution as ‘convert[ing] an ugly pointless device into a prettier, safer and more usable pointless device.’

Its pointlessness was proven by the fact that of the 14,000 produced – less than two weeks’ production at full tilt – only 5000 were sold.

Sir Clive Sinclair: deep belief – in the wrong idea

The C5 was the product of a man with the means believing deeply in the wrong idea. No more than rudimentary market research would have revealed the C5’s flaws and near uselessness in the harsh environment of a late 20th century road network.

Its vulnerability made a superbike look safe. But perhaps the most powerful killer of C5 sales was that you looked an idiot when driving it. And cars – or bikes – that humiliate their users make a hard, hard sell.

Some might say that the C5 was ahead of its time, but it’s doubtful that a tricycle travelling at snail-speed in the company of artics would be allowed on the road today. It would face the same construction and use troubles impeding the decidedly more brilliant Segway, which isn’t allowed on the road either, but has many more uses.

Curiously, one of those is providing ‘safari’ rides in the grounds of Alexandra Palace.

Many thanks to Richard Bremner for allowing me to reproduce this article. To view the original, please go to:-

https://www.retromotor.co.uk/great-motoring-disasters/sinclair-c5-sir-clive-mis-step/

Dewi Bowen – A Tribute

by Mansell Richards

Earlier this year, on 16 June, Merthyr lost one of its great characters, and a huge champion of the town’s heritage, when Dewi Bowen passed away at the age of 93. Here his friend and former colleague, Mansell Richards pays tribute to the great man.

Dewi Bowen was a legend in his home village of Cefn-Coed, a legend at Cyfarthfa Castle School and a legend across the town of Merthyr Tydfil.

A naturally amusing man, he enjoyed making people laugh, whether passers-by in the street, his school pupils and their teachers – not forgetting headmasters – canteen ladies and caretakers, councillors and mayors. But he will be remembered mainly as a gifted artist and teacher. His imaginative artistic output was prodigious: his illustrations of scenes redolent of Merthyr and district’s rich and colourful history can be counted in their hundreds. It is no exaggeration to say that no individual over the decades contributed more to the heritage of this famous Welsh town.

St Tydfil’s Church by Dewi Bowen

Dewi was born on 7 August 1927 at number 87, High Street, Cefn-Coed-y-Cymmer (he loved to give his village its full title). From an early age he showed artistic talent which was nurtured at his beloved Vaynor and Penderyn Grammar School. In 1944 on leaving school at seventeen, he was directed to work as a coal miner for 2 years as part of the national war effort against Hitler’s Germany. This meant he had to postpone entry to art college. Dewi took pride in his years as a ‘Bevin boy’ at Elliot Colliery, New Tredegar and the Rock Colliery, Glynneath.

Indeed his memories of being a young miner never left him. Many of his detailed illustrations were based on his observations of those hard- working men who risked their lives daily in often dangerous conditions.

Similarly, he identified strongly with the soldier in both World Wars, but especially during the First World War.  He never tired of telling of his father’s experience at Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, while his mother served as a nurse in both those wars. This strong affinity with the soldier never left him. Thus in later years, he joined a British Legion excursion to Flanders in order to be present at the unveiling of a sculptured red dragon monument at the site of the Battle of Mametz Wood, where thousands of Welshmen had been killed in 1916.

Dewi never refused work for charities. His cleverly designed, eye-catching posters, advertising fund-raising events appeared at local shops, pubs and libraries. Indeed, he and his scholarly brother Dr Elwyn Bowen MBE, to whom he was devoted, made a massive contribution toward necessary funding, estimated at tens of thousands of pounds, when the Urdd National Eisteddfod visited Merthyr in 1987.

The programme from Cyfarthfa High School’s 1982 production of Christmas Carol designed by Dewi Bowen

Dewi rejoiced also in designing the scenery for the Cefn-Coed Operatic Society which flourished during the 1950s and, contributed greatly in this respect to the annual stage musicals and concerts performed by pupils and staff of Cyfarthfa High School, a school he served loyally for 30 years.

Continuing along the cultural path, his work was regularly exhibited at the National Eisteddfod of Wales, while he contributed to many heritage projects across Merthyr and other districts of South Wales.

He took a particular interest in the preservation of the Joseph Parry Birthplace Project which won the Prince of Wales award. He played a pivotal role in this success for his school. The visitor to 4, Chapel Row, Georgetown will see a beautifully inscribed stone plaque alongside its front door. Not only did Dewi purchase the block of dressed-stone out of his own pocket, but he lovingly carved the inscription,  including the evocative words, ‘Joseph Parry, y bachgen bach o Ferthyr, erioed, erioed- Joseph Parry, a little boy from Merthyr , forever, forever’.  This carved tablet will remain a monument to the creative talent of Dewi Bowen.

His final contribution to the Merthyr cultural scene was to provide the superb illustrations for a book on Merthyr place-names, compiled by Malcolm Llewelyn. Dewi was delighted to be invited as a guest to the book’s launch last year.

But let us return to his never-to-be-forgotten humour, which appealed to people of all ages. At Cyfarthfa School, some pupils with only limited talent were known to have opted for art, mostly for the pleasure of being taught by him. Several brought him regular small gifts of sweets, while one girl, aware of his liking for wimberry tart, presented him with one every autumn. He was, undoubtedly, one of Cyfarthfa School’s most popular teachers.

One story he liked to tell concerned a friendship he had at Cardiff College of Art with the beautiful future actress Anna Kashfi, who was later to marry the Hollywood star, Marlon Brando. When teased about this, Dewi replied ‘I never understood how she preferred Brando to Bowen!’

Dewi never owned a car, preferring to walk almost everywhere. He particularly loved walking holidays during his earlier years. He visited the Holy Land and parts of Russia. When asked why he loved walking so much, he replied. ‘If you’ve spent 3 days in an ancient bus crossing the Negev Desert in the company of 2 Arabs and 50 sheep, you too, would enjoy walking’.

On another occasion he accompanied a friend to see a Wales/England rugby match at Twickenham. With Wales snatching victory towards the end, Dewi insisted on joining the triumphant Welsh supporters on the famous pitch. He astonished his friend by asking for help in order to ascend one of the very high rugby posts. After climbing unsteadily onto his friend’s shoulders, they were both confronted by a London policeman, who turned to the friend with the instruction ‘put the gentleman down please sir’.  Some yards away a group of Cyfarthfa sixth-formers were holding their sides with laughter.

Cyfarthfa Castle by Dewi Bowen

Dewi loved music, especially light opera. He was a regular visitor to Cardiff theatres to enjoy Gilbert and Sullivan productions. He loved singing some of the songs in his distinctive sweet tenor voice, often when talking to friends on the telephone. Dewi would entertain at the drop of a hat.

But his greatest love was his family. He nursed his mother who lived to be a hundred during her final years, while his admiration for his brother Elwyn was profound. He received considerable love and support from his exceptionally loyal nieces, Ann and Elizabeth and sister-in-law Gwynfa, while he gained much joy from his young great nephews, Ewan and Llyr.

There can be no better epitaph to Dewi than in Shakespeare’s words:-

‘We shall not live to see his like again’.