Tag: Brecon and Merthyr Railway

Accident on the Brecon & Merthyr Railway

The following article is transcribed from the Western Mail dated 24 August 1874.

ACCIDENT ON THE BRECON AND MERTHYR RAILWAY

A STOKER KILLED AND A PASSENGER INJURED

On Saturday evening another accident occurred on the Brecon and Merthyr Railway, when the last evening train was wending its way from Brecon to Newport. At a quarter past six o’clock, just as the passenger train had approached Pant station at the point of junction which leads to the Dowlais branch, the engine, from some defect in the points or otherwise, left the rails, and, after an abrupt deviation towards the Dowlais branch, came to a standstill.

The stoker, on perceiving something wrong, either jumped off, or was violently thrown from the footplate of the engine. He was instantaneously killed. His name is John Price, of 26, Dolphin-street, Newport. The engine dragged after it one carriage, which appears to have become separated from the other portion of the train at the time of the accident, and in this carriage was a woman, named Elizabeth Jefferies, wife of a bailer at Ebbw Vale, whose leg was broken. The rear portion of the train passed for a short way along the main line. It contained a great many passengers, none of whom sustained injury. The injured woman was conveyed to the Bruce Hotel, Dowlais, where she received every treatment from Dr. Griffiths, of Dowlais. An inquest will be held on the deceased as soon, as practicable.

ANOTHER ACCOUNT
(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT)
MERTHYR, SUNDAY

This line seems fated to become notorious in the annals of accidents. The inquest has not yet been held over the remains of the victims of the last, when another occurs, and this time to a passenger train.

On Saturday evening the “4.30 passenger” from Brecon to Newport was arriving at the Pant Station, a little way from Dowlais, and where the main line to Newport forms a junction with the branch to Dowlais, when the locomotive suddenly left the metals, and a scene of wreck and disaster at once occurred. Though only 500 yards or so from the station, the pace of the train was rapid. I am not aware whether the carriages are furnished with continuous breaks, but I believe this is the case, and thus up to the closest vicinity of the station the pace is rapid. The locomotive kept exceedingly close to the metals, but it must be noted for future examination on the Pant side.

Some of the carriages were upset, and two of the passengers at least severely injured. One of them at the moment of the accident opened the carriage and jumped out and broke her leg. She was a very stout woman, and this case may be serious. One of the carriages was completely overturned, and the passengers thrown in a heap, but no bones were broken. The stoker, a young married man, named Price, aged 26, was thrown under the wheels of the locomotive and instantly killed. This was the only death, but the injuries received were numerous, though all but two managed to go on with the train.

The scene of the accident has been thronged, but only a heap of matchwood, the remains of one of the carriages, showed where the calamity took place.

It seems a difficult matter to account for the accident. Had the points been at “half,” precisely the same thing would have occurred, but in this case the points are worked from the signal box, and were locked at the time. It will be seen by the official inspector’s report that the first trace of leaving the metals is at the points, and the first blow on one of the fish-plates. Could the flange of the wheel have struck this at a critical place, the facing points just before or on a curve are extremely dangerous, and should be altered.

This is the first accident that has occurred in the locality, which is one of great archaeological interest. The place is called Pantcoed Ivor, and is so named from the redoubtable worthy who scaled Cardiff Castle and sorely grieved the doughty earls of Glamorgan in days of yore. Nearby is a hollow where he is traditionally supposed to have fought his last battle, and on the other side a place called Rhyd-y-bedd, which is associated with his burial. Here, then, by ancient wells, and amidst the moss and the ivy of the past, comes another railway disaster, and its scenic accompaniments, which, too often, alas, mar one of the noblest handmaids of civilization. Where Ivor Bach marched in battle array the locomotive sweeps, and trains of commerce and pleasure are rapidly brushing aside a locality which is only again brought into notice by this railway catastrophe.

Western Mail – 24 August 1874

Merthyr Station and its Approaches

From the Merthyr Express 80 years ago today….

Merthyr Express – 29 July 1944

David Davies J.P.

By J Ann Lewis

David Davies was born in July 1857, the youngest of ten children.

His father died when David was just seven years of age, and at the age of ten, he began working at a candle factory at Caedraw. When the factory closed, David returned to school for a short time before gaining employment at another candle factory in Victoria Street. When he was 18 he began working at the Plymouth Works Rolling Mills, and after their closure, he found employment at the Ifor Works Rolling Mills.

In 1878 he became a conductor on the London and Northwest Railway omnibuses which connected the train passengers with the Brecon and Merthyr Railway at Dowlais Central Station. When the Morlais Tunnel opened in June 1879, the buses were no longer required, so he became a porter and later signalman. He married Mary in 1881 and moved to Pant, and the couple had six children – Annie, Albert, William, Arthur, Frank and Bryn, Albert losing his life in the First World War.

A man deeply involved in local politics, fighting for an improved living standard for others, he organised a large demonstration at Cyfarthfa Park, asking for 2,000 new houses to be built. He was also a J.P., served on the Board of Guardians for nine years, was one of the founders of the Dowlais Co-operative Society (later becoming its chairman), and he was also a founder member of the Dowlais Railwaymen’s Coal Club, which had its own wagons, and by cutting out the middle-man, saved the profits for its members.

In 1919, he was the official candidate (Dowlais Ward) for the Merthyr Trades Council and Labour Party. Points of his campaign were:-

  • Free medical and nursing care for infants.
  • Clean, plentiful, cheap milk; managed by the people for the people and thus eliminating private profit.
  • Free meals for hungry children.
  • Free medical treatment for the needy and sick.

He was elected mayor in 1925-26.

David died in 1940, his principal aim in life having been to leave the town of his birth a better place than he found it.

Adrian Stephens and the ‘Steam Whistle’

by Laura Bray

Following on from the recent article about J.O. Francis’ romantic reminiscences of the railway, you have to ask – what is a railway without a locomotive and what is locomotive without a whistle?

“The Western Mail” had an answer, printing, on Friday 4th January 1935, an article with the banner “Romance of the First Steam Whistle”.

Adrian Stephens. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

Like so many inventions, the steam whistle was born in the Dowlais Iron Company.  Its inventor was Adrian Stephens, a Cornishman by birth, who had come to Merthyr in the early 19th century, and had initially worked as Chief Engineer at the Plymouth Iron Works before moving to a similar role in the Dowlais works in about 1827.  Here he had charge of the mill and the blowing engines.

Never a place blessed with health and safety standards, iron working was particularly dangerous, and in about 1835 there was an explosion where one of the old non-tubular boilers burst, with the loss of several lives.  An investigation into the incident suggested that there was negligence – smoke and grime had made the safety gauges unreadable, and the stoker had failed to ensure an adequate supply of water was pumped in.

John Josiah Guest tasked Adrian Stephens with the job of finding a way to prevent a reoccurrence, and after some experimentation with a long tube similar to a tin whistle, and then some organ pipes that Stephens asked Guest to source, he eventually came up with a local copper tube, made like a bosun’s pipe, but wider and with a larger vent.  The end of the tube was fixed to the top if the boiler, with the other held submerged in the water in the boiler.  As the water ran dry, the steam was pushed up the pipe and a shrill whistle sounded, thereby allowing action to be taken before the pressure caused an explosion.  Not surprisingly, the workers hated it, regarding it as a nuisance to be put out of action.   Stephens therefore enclosed it in a cage, and it was in this form that it was adopted by all the Merthyr ironworks – and then added to every boiler, railway locomotive and steam ship around the world.

Adrian Stephens’ Steam Whistle. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

Stephens did not patent his invention.  Writing to his niece in 1872 he said “Neither in want, nor caring for money at the time, I did not think of taking a patent”.  He was even unsure about which year he had introduced it, guessing 1835, as it was before Guest was created a baronet (1838).

But his steam whistle was not the only railway connected achievement – Stephens was also credited with planning the “Lady Charlotte”, the first locomotive to be used at the Dowlais Works.

After Guest’s death, Stephens moved to the Penydarren Ironworks, where he invented, according to his son, the “Hot Blast”, which made the furnaces hotter and more efficient, before ending his career as a Civil Engineer for Anthony Hill in the Plymouth Works.

Stephens died in 1876 by which stage his invention had revolutionised steam safety.  He is buried in Cefn Cemetery, within hearing distance of the Merthyr-Brecon/LNWR trains whistling up and down the track.

So the next time you hear the “whoo whoo” from the heritage railway or the magnificent Flying Scotsman, think of Adrian Stephens and Merthyr’s role in that Age of Romance.

Adrian Stephens’ grave at Cefn Cemetery. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

The Railways of Romance – part2

The engines of the “Rhymney” Railway do not stand out clearly in my memory. I fear that, in my enthusiasm for the “Taff”, I never did justice to a line that dared to compete by taking folk to Cardiff. It had its advocates, however, and I recall that it was commended for an honest turn of speed. The “London North Western” also suffered the same injustice. In those days of restricted geographical knowledge we were unable to put the credit of the “London North Western” its importance on the way from London to Lancashire. As I remember it then, in its black coat and sleek contours, the “London North Western” engine carried an air of restraint and culture, suggesting, perhaps, an elegant curate. It came among us kindly, but it was never really of us.

But there was one engine that we classed apart from all others. It was the dear old “Brecon and Merthyr” in its faded coat of brown. What degree of precision that line has now acquired I do not know. Since those old days it may have grown meticulous, and, like the “Cambrian”, begun to sub-divide its breathless minutes. But in the period of which I speak nobody ever asked the “Brecon and Merthyr” to run to time. It was not even expected. People were, in the main, quite satisfied if it came in on the proper day. It had, no doubt, good reason for its tardiness; and when it arrived at last the general relief was so charged with fine emotion that pity and forgiveness floated easily to the top.

A train on the Brecon and Merthyr Railway approaching Torpantau in the 1940s. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

Looking back I am driven to believe that, for us small boys, the “Brecon and Merthyr” fulfilled a literary purpose quite outside the intentions of its directors. In that stage of literary taste we were, most of us, given to the assiduous study of Deadwood Dick and the whole fraternity of Canyon, Gulch and Bowie Knife. All our young romanticism, which otherwise might have hung loose in the air, centred about the “Brecon and Merthyr”. It was our stage-coach, moving through the terrors of the wild and woolly West. The other railways went through the civilized and ordered belts of Glamorgan; but the “Brecon and Merthyr” wound its way through lonely places in the frowning hills. When, long after the appointed time of arrival, it had not even been signalled, who knew that some “foul-play” had befallen it? Desperadoes might have sent it crashing into the lake at Dolygaer, or it might be that at Cefn masked men had boarded it, covering the driver with their “derringers”, while others looted whatever the guard’s van held as the equivalent of the gold nuggets of our literature.

Many of those who, in that long ago, kept with me the vigil of the trolleys are now staid citizens with small boys of their own. It may be that, with the hypocritical virtue of age, those old companions now chide their youngsters should they come home a little late, bringing with them a faint odour of fish and vegetables. But it may be, too, that if any of those little boys of former time chance to read what is here written they will temper paternal judgement with new mercy, for so they must do if they can remember the thrill of those dark winter evenings when, from that far romantic void, the “Brecon and Merthyr” came home at last – with driver and stoker lit by the glow of boiler-fires to the semblance of heroes more than mortal.

This article was transcribed from the book ‘The Legend of the Welsh’, an anthology of J. O. Francis’ writings published in 1924.

I would recommend anyone to try to track down a copy of the book – it’s a fantastic collection of some of the short works by one of Merthyr’s best, but sadly forgotten. writers.

 

The Railways of Romance – part 1

Today marks the 140th anniversary of the birth of one of Merthyr’s greatest writers – J. O. Francis. To mark the occasion, one of his excellent short essays is transcribed below, following a short introduction by Mary Owen who wrote a marvellous biography of him.

John Oswald Francis (J.O.) was born at 15, Mary Street, Twynyrodyn in 1882, and lived later at 41, High Street, next door to Howfields, when his father, a blacksmith, opened a farrier shop in the busy shopping centre. In 1896 he entered the County Intermediate and Technical School on the day of its opening and benefited greatly, like many others, from the education he received there. It formed the grounding for the rest of his life. A blacksmith’s life was not for him. In 1900, he gained a scholarship to University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, where he graduated with first class honours in English.

He lived for the rest of his life in London, where he was well known as a dramatist, journalist, broadcaster and a popular public speaker. He found fame in 1913 with his play, Change, about ordinary Welsh working-class people and the problems they were facing as changes were taking place in politics, religion and education. It was the first of its kind and gave a new genre to drama, which influenced writers for decades. Although he lived away from Merthyr Tydfil for most of his life, his knowledge of it in his youth inspired him to write about it in the years that followed until his death in 1956. His many short comedies helped to bring about the popularity of amateur dramatics, especially in Glamorgan. He was a pioneer and he became a leading member of the First Welsh National Drama Movement. He was regarded as ‘a distinguished dramatist, ‘a gentle satirist, and ‘always a Merthyr boy’.

Mary Owen

The Railways of Romance

None of us can determine which of the impressions we are always unconsciously receiving is being most deeply written on our minds. What abides is, often enough, that which might least be expected to remain. It is, too, sometimes a little incongruous, as if memory were in part jester, playing tricks with recollection – perhaps in kindness – lest the past should have too grim a visage.

Setting up to be a serious and philosophic person, I must confess to some perplexity over my remembrance of South Wales. There is an interloping thought that persists in creeping into the midst of more exalted memories. I cannot think of the high places of my early destiny – my home, my school, the houses of my more generous relations, and the chapel of my juvenile theology – but that a railway station crowds unasked into the mental scene. In the station of that Town of the Martyr in Glamorgan, an there, no doubt, small boys, stealing away from the harsh realities of the High Street, still snatch a fearful joy upon the trolleys, and staring away past the signal box, weave for themselves the figments of young romance.

Merthyr Railway Station in the early 1900s. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

The small boy’s zest in railway stations has, I may argue in self-defence, a basis in the deep instincts of humanity. In the old primitive world the barbarian, looking up on the sun, was overwhelmed by a sense of its vast power. He made a god of it, and bowed in reverence. So, also, that unequivocal barbarian, the average small boy, beholds in a railway engine an example of power well within the range of his understanding. It is, perhaps, the same old instinct of adoration that kindles in every healthy youngster his burning desire to be a railway-guard.

Even in this riper stage, when life holds joys more attractive than the right to blow the whistle and to jump authoritatively upon a moving train, I find that a railway station can still exercise a certain lure. To every good Welshman, Paddington and Euston are wondrous places. He may not be one of the happy pilgrims, but it is a pleasure merely to look at carriages that go out under such banners as “Cardiff”, “Fishguard”, “Aberystwyth”, “Dolgelley” or “Barmouth”, and if he is not quite a curmudgeon he can find a vicarious delight in the blessedness of those departing.

But Paddington and Euston have a strenuous air. They do not encourage people to loiter upon trolleys and watch the pageant of the trains. In that station of the Martyr’s Town there was more tolerance. Over Paddington and Euston it had also this other advantage – it did not monotonously receive and despatch the rolling-stock of a single company. Oh, no! It had trains in a variety that I have never since seen equalled. Almost all the lines in Glamorgan gathered to it, just as all paths are said to lead to Rome.

Simply to enumerate the companies that sent their trains to pause under that grimy but catholic roof is to recover something of the rapture of the schoolboy “with shiny morning face”. We had the “Great Western” and the “Taff”; the “London North Western”, the “Rhymney”, and the “Brecon and Merthyr”. I am sorry that, by some kindly roundabout way, the Barry Railway did not run in also. But I am sure that it was then much more than a project.

We small boys of the station-hunting breed knew the different types of engine point by point. We had each of us a favourite. Bitter indeed were our disputes on the question of comparative worth, and devotion went occasionally to the chivalry of fisticuffs. Squeaky voices were raised in partisan abuse. Young eyes shone with the light of a noble championship. (Grown-up people, I have since learnt, land themselves in the law courts for issues less important than those falsetto controversies).

The engine of each company had its own characteristic quality, fully appreciated in our loving study after school hours and in the joyous emancipation of Saturday. The “Great Western” arrived from some vague place called “Swansea” – made after the “local” model, and with its well-known “tick, tick!” rather like a stout lady in a dark-green costume catching her breath after exhausting movement. To many of us the “Taff” was the most impressive of them all. I daresay that on a general suffrage, with a secret ballot to nullify the influence of some of our brawnier members, the “Taff” would have been voted the finest thing that ever went on wheels. How big and burly was the “Taff” engine as it swung past the signal box! How cheerfully it whistled, and how inevitably did it suggest a robust representation of John Bull!

Often did we wonder what would happen if it failed to stop before it reached the buffers. About our expectant platform hung the legend of a day when an engine had crashed right through and gone in mad career almost to the door of the Temperance Hall without. But not for us were such catastrophes! They were the story of an older era, a reminiscence of giants before the flood.

An old print showing the terrible accident mentioned above at Merthyr Station on 16 May 1874

To be continued…….

Notes on the Merthyr Tydfil Tramroads – part 2

by Gwilym and John Griffiths

Cwm Cannaid Tramroad: We do not know when this tramroad was constructed. We would guess it was sometime around 1800-1814. Despite its name, the tramroad was built before the shaft of Cwm Cannaid Colliery was sunk. The track was shown clearly on the 1814 Ordnance Survey Map and on Robert Dawson’s 1832 Boundary Commission Map whereas the shafts of Cwm Cannaid Colliery were apparently sunk about 1845. The purpose of the tramroad was to relieve the inefficient old tub canal, or coal canal, sometimes called the Cyfarthfa Coal Canal, of the 1770s. The latter transported coal (and perhaps ironstone?) in two-ton tubs from levels (some suggested via dangerous leats) in Cwm Cannaid to Cyfarthfa Works: some say horse-drawn, others say hauled or pushed by men and women. The Cyfarthfa Coal Canal was closed around 1835, which gives an explanation of Cwm Cannaid Tramroad on Robert Dawson’s 1832 Boundary Commission Map.

The tramroad followed roughly the route of the old coal canal: the latter a twisting route, the former almost a straight line. It skirted Glyn Dyrys Ironstone Mine, a coal shaft below Lower Colliers Row, in front of Lower Colliers Row itself, Tir Wern Uchaf (where it crossed the canal twice), a link to Cwm y Glo Colliery and Ironstone Mine, Upper Colliers Row, Tir Heol Gerrig and hence to the coke ovens and yards above (to the west) of Cyfarthfa Works.

Lower Colliers Row. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

When Cwm Cannaid Pit was sunk in 1845, that became the terminus of the system. The 1901 Ordnance Survey Map named it ‘Cwm Pit Railway’, and the line linking it to ‘Gethin Railway’ was labelled ‘railway in course of construction’. We saw the remnants of these mines, canal and tramroad in the 1940s and 1950s, and often walked the old canal embankment, by then well wooded.

A section of the 1901 Ordnance Survey Map showing the tramroad marked as ‘Cwm Pit Railway’. Lower Colliers Row and the old Cyfarthfa Canal are also shown.

Again, industrial despoliation was reverting to nature: delicious wild strawberries on the old waste tipping, a nightingale singing by the disused and reed-covered canal reservoir, woodcock and common snipe, pied flycatchers and wood warblers, and numerous other birds; with wild orchids amongst the damp marshy vegetation with dragon-flies, damsel-flies, glow-worms and water-boatmen. We doubt if this still exists in the coniferous plantations which replaced them all in more recent years.

Dowlais Tramroad: This was constructed about 1792-93 to connect Dowlais Works with Pont y Storehouse near the Glamorgan Canal terminus, roughly near present-day Jackson’s Bridge. It gave Dowlais Works access to the then ‘recently’ constructed Glamorgan Canal. The route may well have followed initially the Morlais Quarry Tramroad from Dowlais via Gelli Faelog, keeping to the Gelli Faelog side of Nant Morlais. The 1793 extension from this tramroad is today represented by the main road and high pavement from Trevithick Street down to Pont Morlais and thence via the tunnel, formerly a bridge, into Bethesda Street to Jackson’s Bridge. Did the Glamorgan Canal Company pay the £1,100 for the construction of the tramroad (and Jackson’s Bridge) in lieu of the proposed linking canal from Merthyr Tudful to Dowlais?

Bethesda Street in the 1950s. The car is parked on what was the where tramway exited the tunnel mentioned above and continued to the Glamorganshire Canal at Pontstorehouse. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

Gethin Tramroad: This tramroad or railway linked Gethin Colliery (sunk between 1845 and 1849 and opened 1849) initially, and Castle Colliery later (1860s?), with Cyfarthfa Works, taking a route in between those of Cwm Cannaid Tramroad and Ynys Fach Tramroad. No tramroad was shown on the 1850 Tithe Map and Schedule. By 1886 the track left Castle Colliery, skirted the hillside west of the Glamorgan Canal between Furnace Row and Tir Pen Rhiw’r Onnen, through Gethin Colliery (with a link to pit-shaft No2), past Graig Cottage and a bridge over Nant Cannaid. At (the 1853) Cyfarthfa Crossing it curved northwestwards past Tir Wern Isaf and Tir Llwyn Celyn, looping under the 1868 Brecon and Merthyr Railway near Heol Gerrig, and thence to the coke yards.

Gethin Colliery. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive.

By 1886 the route was upgraded to the GWR and Rhymney Railway as far as the Cyfarthfa Crossing. The 1876 six-inch Ordnance Survey Map showed the terminus for the ‘cwbs’ at the rear of Cyfarthfa Works. The 1901 Ordnance Survey Map called it ‘Gethin Railway’. Our grandfather used the railway to get to work at Castle Colliery, and we regularly used this route (then upgraded to a full railway) in the 1940s and 1950s on our daily journeys to and from school at Quakers Yard. One of us was on the last train to use this line before the viaduct between Quakers yard and Pont y Gwaith was found to be unsafe.

Gyrnos Quarry Tramroad: This was used to bring limestone from Gyrnos Quarry (Graig y Gyrnos) alongside Tâf Fechan, past the limekilns and coal yards, over Afon Tâf by Pont Cafnau to Cyfarthfa Works. We have no details of dates, but walked the route many times in the 1950s in search of dippers, kingfishers, grey wagtails and the rest. It was the first tramroad recorded in the 1805 list of John Jones and William Llywelyn: 1 mile 106 yards to Cyfarthfa Furnaces and just over 1¾ miles to the new Ynys Fach Furnaces. In view of the size of the quarry, it must have transported many tons of material.

Pont-y-Cafnau in March 2017

The Morlais Brook – part 1

by Clive Thomas

It was not until September 1968 that I first became acquainted with ‘The Stinky’, the name given to the Morlais Brook by past generations of children and adults who lived along its banks.

Not being a Merthyr boy I was really unaware of its existence, let alone details of its course and history. Where I lived in Troedyrhiw we had the River Taf across the fields of Bill Jones’ farm and our only brook was an old Hill’s Plymouth Collieries’ watercourse which drained numerous disused mountainside coal levels. Despite its origins, the water was clear and clean, drinkable, dammed in the summer holidays, paddled and bathed in. When bored or just at a loose end we raced empty Bondman tobacco tins along its course, running to keep up with the flow and ensure that our own particular tin wasn’t held up by a fallen branch or trapped in an inconvenient eddy. On first encounter I couldn’t imagine any of those activities taking place along ‘The Stinky’ and my initial observations confirmed that its local name was not in any way exaggerated. Indeed, the name appropriately characterised some of its more sinister and less praiseworthy qualities.

The stretch I first got to know was, what a student of physical geography would term, the stream’s ‘Old Age’, that is the portion towards the end of its life. Indeed, one might say at its very death, for union with the parent Taf was imminent and in 1968 the confluence of the two was observable, not as now concealed beneath a highway and pedestrian pathway. To the south of the stream were some of the streets and courtways of the town, many of which were derelict and already marked as candidates for slum clearance. Within two or three years these would be swept away. Rising up from its northern bank was the huge tip of waste produced over a century earlier by the Penydarren Ironworks, its industrial waste concealed for the most part by surprisingly lush vegetation. The British Tip, as it was sometimes known, took its name from the British and Foreign Bible Society, founders of the academy which graced its summit. On its plateau top was a once grand construction, a building of a century’s age but which in many respects had seen better times.  Abermorlais, the school’s official name, was most appropriate, as it proclaimed its location, at the union of Taf and Nant Morlais. Unfortunately,  there was to be seen no evidence in the stream here of a course well run, more confirmation of ill use, where Sixties’ waste and detritus continued to be added to over a century’s massive abuse. A sad end indeed to what no doubt had once been in pre-industrial times a clear and unspoilt mountain stream.

A map from the 1860s showing the Morlais Brook (flowing East to West) entering the Taff (flowing North to South). Abermorlais School is shown overlooking the scene.

Perhaps though, to gain a more comprehensive appreciation of the stream’s course, it is probably better to follow the guidance of another Thomas, and “begin at the beginning”.

Nant Morlais forms from numerous small tributaries on the slopes of Twynau Gwynion and Cefnyr Ystrad on the 560 metre contour above Pantysgallog and  Dowlais. In a distance of seven and a half kilometres it descends 440 metres to its confluence with the Taf. It’s not easy walking country with the gently dipping beds of Millstone grit overlying the Carboniferous Limestone. The surface is rough with ankle breaking rocks and many sink holes to topple into. Among many, but by far the largest of these is Pwll Morlais, a deep and supreme example of what happens where the underlying Limestone has been eroded and the grit collapses into the void. Depending on the season this can be a steep sided, empty peat banked hole or after heavy rain, full to overflowing with a brew of brown froth. The song of the skylark can be enjoyed here on a fine summer day but it is also a solitary place, disconcerting or eerie even, when mist or low cloud descends and the lone walker is surprised by the frantic cry of a disturbed snipe.

Pwll Morlais. Photo Clive Thomas

On a clear day the view to the south is the trough of the Taf Valley. Always viewed into the sun so never really clear, with only silhouettes, shadows and reflections to give a hint of detail. One wonders how different it would have looked when all of the works below would have been at their height?

From Pwll Morlais, the stream is called Tor-Gwyn by the Ordnance Survey, until its junction with another parallel tributary, and thereafter it becomes Nant Morlais proper. The stream’s descent is gentle to begin with over the hard resistant gritstone. It is along this stretch  that there is much evidence of the importance placed on the brook as a source of water power for the rapidly growing Dowlais Works during the early part of the nineteenth century. There are still the remains of sluices and numerous places where the course has been altered, or feeders led its water off to be stored in numerous hillside reservoirs.

Sluice where water was diverted from the stream into the Pitwellt Pond. Photo Clive Thomas

Where one of these diversions fed the extensive but now dry Pitwellt Pond above Pengarnddu, the Brook leaves the Millstone Grit and begins to cut a deep gorge into the softer Coal Measure rocks. From here there is more urgency in its flow, its course becomes narrower and more confined. At several locations it caused railway builders of the past to pause and consider the inconvenience of its course which would necessitate the construction of embankments and small bridges. The line which took limestone to the ironworks at Rhymney crossed hereabouts, as did the Brecon and Merthyr Railway on its way north over the Beacons and the London and North Western on its descent into Merthyr Tydfil via the ‘Miler’ or  Morlais Tunnel.

The stream cuts down into some of the softer beds of the Coal Measures. Photo Clive Thomas

More significantly however, it is within this section of the stream that geologists have been able to discover some of the secrets of the South Wales Coalfield and probably many hundreds of school pupils, university students, and local amateur geologists will have benefitted from the instruction of teachers like Ron Gethin, Tom Sharpe or John Perkins. Like myself on many occasions I am sure, they have stumbled down its steep banks into the course of the stream below Blaen Morlais Farm in search of  Gastriocerassubcranatum or Gastriocerascancellatum . Not valuable minerals  these, but the important fossils which would indicate the location of one or other of the marine bands which were significant in determining the sequence of sedimentation of the rocks generally, and the coal seams in particular.

To be continued…..