Gillar Street – The Melting Pot

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.

Assuming ourselves at the junction of the Mardy and High Street, we will try to go (as many did during the turnpike gate days) around to Dowlais. The Star is on the right hand, a small house and shop on the left, the Mardy House being close, in fact the front garden touched the wall of Shop House, and Mardy House itself faced out to the High Street. This was the new front; a portion of the older part adjoined and had a thatched roof. It was occupied by a Mrs David Meyrick, I believe (Mr David Meyrick Having died there). Adjoining the Mardy was the residence of Mr Edmund Harman.

An extract from the 1851 Ordnance Survey Map showing the area in question

Gillar Street comes in, and on the opposite corner was a shop where (if not mistaken) Mr William Harris first opened on his own account; then the residence of Mr William Rowland, the parish clerk. At the making of the Vale of Neath Railway it was necessary to take part of his garden, and the navvies were annoyed at his troubling so much about some fruit trees. Naturally they would move them in the early hours of the day to avoid interference, but on one occasion he went out while they were doing so, and heard one of the navvies say to the other “Look out Jim; here’s the b_____ old Amen coming”. His wrath was not modified by the hearing of this, but that he did hear it is well known.

An opening into the Cae Gwyn followed, and the Fountain public house was upon the corner of the Tramroad. Upon the right side behind the Star were some five or six cottages, and after an opening was passed that came from Pendwranfach, the Court premises and Garden followed. The house itself has been improved since then, but it was always the parent house of the town. The Glove and Shears adjoined, and abutting on its gable was the Tramroad. Just here will be spoken of again in reference to the Tramroad. Now however, we will cross it and ascend the hill – Twynyrodyn.

Some not over good cottages lined a part of the way; there was a better residence on the right before coming to Zion, the Welsh Baptist Chapel, and opposite the chapel was the residence of the Rev Enoch Williams. Facing down the road just above was the White Horse public house, with a row of cottages with gardens in front. There were but few cottages beyond Zion Chapel on that side.

The White Horse Inn. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

At the end of the White Horse, and behind the row of cottages, is the original ground used for burial of those who died from the cholera epidemic in the very early thirties (those who died at the subsequent visitation being buried in Thomastown, near the Union Workhouse).

The road had few if any cottages. In a dell, which may be called the end of Cwm Rhyd-y-bedd, there was one, and some a little further on to the left. The ‘Mountain Hare’ was the name of the public house built there adjoining the railroad leading from the Winch Fawr to the Penydarren Works.

To be continued at a later date…..

Merthyr Memories: St Mary’s Roman Catholic School and Court Street

by Barrie Jones

The blog article of the 27^th November 2019 (http://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=3016) on the aerial view of Court Street in 1965 brought back memories of my school days in St Mary’s Catholic School and my recollection of Court Street during that time. I attended the school in the four ‘school years’ from September 1956 to July 1960, so I recall features of the street that had already disappeared by 1965.

Living in Twynyrodyn my usual route to school was down Twyn Hill so the first landmark on the street I would pass by was the Glove and Shears situated on the left hand side and corner of where the Tramroad crossed the Twynyrodyn Road.

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

Opposite on the right hand side of the road the last house of Twynyrodyn Road was a corner shop. I can’t recall ever going into the shop but I did spend many a time looking in the shop window. There on display were a variety of items in what must have been ‘dummy’ packets; dusty boxes of popular products of their day, even chocolate bars presumably made of wood or cardboard wrapped in foil etc. The shop’s display never seemed to change so the shelves and their goods were liberally sprinkled with dead flies and wasps.

Further down the street on the right hand side between Gospel Hall formally Twynyrodyn Unitarian Chapel and the railway bridge were a row of properties, some of which were shops. The one shop I remember in detail was an electrical goods shop with a large window displaying a variety of modern electrical appliances. Just inside the doorway of the shop were stacked lead acid batteries, the battery acid was held in thick glass containers with carrying handles. The batteries were used to power radios in those properties where there was no mains electricity supply. You could hire the battery and once the ‘charge’ had expired you returned the battery to the shop to be recharged and collected a newly charged battery in exchange.

After passing under the railway bridge by means of an archway on the right hand side of the road, you then passed by Jerusalem Chapel on the corner of Gillar Street. In Gillar Street on the left hand side there was a small row of houses that backed onto our school yard. The houses had no back gardens, just small courts that were separated from our playground by a low thick stone wall capped with flag stones. Inevitably many a football or tennis ball landed in one of the courts much to the annoyance of their occupiers.

The school building was probably built in late 1870 or early 1871 for both infants and primary age children with a capacity for approximately 460 pupils. On the 30^th April 1870 the Aberdare Times reported that “the splendid schools now in the course of erection on the Maerdy Estate are proof of the success that has attended the Rev. Gentleman’s administrations”, (Father Martin Bruton). The ‘schools’ were built on the site of Maerdy House a large building with a sizable garden at its rear, which was now the school yard.

St Mary’s School. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

In October 1869 the Local Board of Health gave approval for new school rooms and additions to the house which may explain why the first floor was accessed by an exterior staircase only. The first floor may have been an addition or enlargement above the existing house’s structure. At the rear of the building there were unusual features such as a small arched recess built into the building that seemed to have no function other than as den for us to climb into during playtime.

The School’s boundary wall on the northern side of the school yard separated the school from Conway’s Dairies. This was formally the site of the Boot Inn, 22 High Street, Conway’s had acquired the premises in 1910 and its offices and plant were accessed from the High Street.

Conway’s Dairies. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

From our yard could be seen towering above the high stone wall the cylindrical metal chimneys of the Dairy’s pasteurisation and bottling plants. The Dairy’s coal fired steam production must have taken its toll on the metal chimneys, as they were extremely rusty. When we turned up for school one morning we were greeted by the sight of one of the chimneys lying in our school yard. The chimney must have rusted through near its base and because of either the weight of metal or high wind it had collapsed during the night. At this time household milk was delivered by horse and cart and the Dairy kept the horses and carts in stables built in the arches of the railway bridge. The stables were accessed from the road leading off Court Street opposite the entrance to Gillar Street. Conway’s Dairies moved its main production to a new plant at the Willows on the other side of the River Taff in 1960/61, but retained use of its High Street plant for many years after but on a much reduced scale.

A Conway’s Dairies milk cart outside the old Boot Inn in the early part of the 20th Century. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

As well as the Dairies’ chimneys, the other prominent features on the skyline were the clock tower of St Tydfil’s Church and the four storey high Angel Hotel. The parish clock was a useful timepiece for us boys when playing in the streets and alleys near the school during the lunch hour. Punishment for lateness for afternoon lessons could be a canning on the hand. In 1957 the Angel hotel was demolished and during playtimes we had a grandstand view of its progress. The walls of the hotel were very thick with over 400 windows that were deeply recessed with bench seats and the workmen could be seen walking along the top of the wall knocking away the brickwork at their feet with sledge hammers. A working practice that would making any health and safety officer wince, and of course it was not surprising that two men fell from the third storey when part of the wall they were standing on collapsed. Sadly one died and the other was seriously injured.

Opposite the school was a row of terraced houses, formally Maerdy Row, in the front window of one of the houses I can recall seeing a display of boxing trophies, cups belts etc. I don’t know whether they were for professional or amateur boxing or how long they were on display. The occupier of the house must have had some pride in the achievement to display them in their front window. The properties in and around Court Street were near their full life and in February 1960 number 2 Court Street and numbers 22 and 23 Gillar Street were issued with demolition orders. In the following month the County Borough Council approved a compulsory purchase order (CPO) for Court Street. The street was demolished together with the properties between the railway line and the High Street known as the Ball Court. The aerial photograph shows that Jones Bros Garage occupied the site in 1965.

At the end of Court Street as it joins the High Street on the left hand corner and behind the Star Inn was a slaughter house. We boys could climb the waste ground at the side of the building to look down through a window to watch the slaughter men working below. The smell and sounds of the slaughter house is something I will never forget.

By 1960 plans were in place to relocate St Mary’s to an alternative site in Caedraw and today the school in Caedraw is scheduled for closure with a new school planned for the Bishop Hedley School site in Penydarren.

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.

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……

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.

I will now endeavour mentally to walk up the High Street. Beginning from about the old Taff Vale Station, the opening on the right led around, and came out near the Court House, while the second (there was only a public house between them) to Pendwranfach. Passing these there was a division in the road; pedestrians, if they liked, could keep the right hand one (which was the shortest of the two), but vehicular traffic kept to the left hand opening just as it is today.

The first opening on the left of this left hand opening was Cross Keys Street, on which, on the right hand side there was the ‘lock-up’. This consisted of two rooms, quite dark as far as I can remember, and the entrance doors were alongside one another. It was here, I remember, Dick Tamar being locked up for the murder of his mother. The next opening on the same side was Mill Street, and just opposite, at the entrance was the stocks. An entrance gate to the churchyard was close to the stocks.

An extract from the 1851 Public Health Map showing the area in question

In Mill Street there was public house called the White Lion, and adjoining the residence of Mr Evans, minister of Ynysgau Chapel. Mr Evans had evidently married a widow, for there were four Miss Williamses there as well as a son whose name was Evans. Mill Street led around by the Plymouth feeder or watercourse to Bridge Street. Adjacent to the dwellings the ruins of the old mill stood. This was an old grist mill, and will be alluded to again as being of great assistance in a law suit.

The block of buildings between the right hand, or path and the left, or road, is the lower shop. In one of the two facing up the High Street, a bank (the Merthyr Bank) was kept for a while, a Mr Williams being the manager, who was also, I believe, a tallow chandler, for I know his widow and son were so at a later date. Only a short way above the junction of the path and road, on the right hand side, stands The Star, at one time the best hostelry in town, for it was here Nelson stayed on a visit to Merthyr Tydfil.

The Star Inn. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

Then follows an opening – Mardy Street then I believe, for the Mardy is close by. The next opening on the same side is Broad Street, and the next above on the same side Gillar Street; but before coming to Gillar Street, on the opposite side of the road, was what I will call Three Salmons Street, for the public house of that name was on its left hand side.

On the left hand from the White Lion there was nothing but the churchyard wall. The churchyard itself was higher than the road, and getting very full, the wall being kept well limed for a very good purpose. Between Mardy Street and and Broad Street there was a small shop, then the Boot, kept by James Evans, then a druggist’s shop kept by a person named Strange, and at the corner of Broad Street, a grocer’s shop kept by David Rosser. This was the name he traded in, but his full name was David Rosser Davis.

The Boot Inn. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

On the opposite corner of Broad Street was the Farmers’ Arms, and adjoining it, extending up to Gillar Street, was the Angel, kept by David Williams. His aunt, a Miss Teague, was there, and had, I think, an interest in it. Perhaps I ought to say when John Nixon opened on the coal at Werfa, this David Williams had an interest in the sinking, but taking more capital than anticipated, James Evans, a wine and spirit merchant, of Redcliff Hill, Bristol also joined at a later date.

To be continued at a later date…..