In 1826 several people who were followers of the Independent movement in Pontsticill started holding meetings in a local house, and they called on Rev T B Evans of Ynysgau Chapel to lead their meetings.
Within two years the small congregation had grown sufficiently for them to consider building their own chapel. With the support of Rev Evans, on 10 October 1898 they leased a plot of land from a local landowner – Philip Watkins, and built a small chapel which was opened for worship on 4 February 1829.
The original Bethlehem Chapel
The first minister of Bethlehem was William David, a lay preacher at Ynysgau Chapel who was subsequently ordained and inducted as the minister of Bethlehem in 1830.
Sometime during 1913, the congregation at the chapel learned that the part of the Taf Fechan Valley on which the chapel was built was due to be flooded in order to build the new reservoir. The trustees decided to build a new chapel in the centre of Pontsticill. The Merthyr Tydfil Corporation gave the trustees a piece of land on which to build the new chapel and also £1,500 in payment for the old chapel. The new chapel was built in 1924.
Members of the congregation after the last service at the old chapel on 14 September 1925
By the late 1960’s the congregation had severely dwindled, so in 1968, the trustees reluctantly decided to close the chapel. The building was subsequently sold and converted to a private house.
The ruins of the old chapel still remain beneath the Taf Fechan reservoir, and can sometimes be seen at times when the water level of the reservoir is very low.
Throughout the Medieval period the number of local farms increased and these Manorial farms improved their productivity whilst the population waxed and waned. The antiquarian, David Merch, studied the 1558 “Morganiae Archaiographia” and identified 14 freehold farms. Manorial Rent Lists became important historical sources and John Griffiths used these records in his detailed work “Historical Farms of Merthyr Tudful” (2012) he identified 120 farms (see map below) twenty five of which were “Charter Land Farms” which were freehold in 1630 suggesting that the aristocracy divested a proportion of their freehold land in order to accrue capital or to curry favour with landed gentry. The freeholders of noble birth had been established for hundreds of year however these were not continuous blood lines. For example, the Earldom of Plymouth title has been established three times, firstly in 1675 by Charles II and by 1765 there had been another different family line as the original title holders did not have children or near relatives required in order to inherit.
Five centuries after Gilbert de Clare claimed freehold ownership of all of the Merthyr land by force, a number of entrepreneurs came into the valley to begin the manufacture of iron. Business people such as Anthony Bacon, William Brownrigg, Isaac Wilkinson, John Guest, Richard Crawshay and the three Homfray brothers jostled to gain leases to build the ironworks: Dowlais (1759), Plymouth (1763), Cyfarthfa (1765) and Penydarren (1784). These works were financed by wealthy individuals and distant investors aware that resources were available to include coal, ironstone, limestone, clay, timber and particularly important, supplies of water.
The rich absentee freeholders owned tracts of local farmland and were anxious to lease their holdings in the knowledge they could increase their income by leasing land for the extraction of minerals to the newcomers rather than from their existing tenant farmer. Two of the largest freeholders were the Earl of Plymouth and Earl Talbot whose forebears had concentrated on rural economies but now they changed their attitude to manufacturing and this opened a new chapter on the ownership of land in their possession. There was a rapid decline in the number of farms and an attendant change from a rural to an urban economy; houses were required for the influx of people to man the ironworks, quarry the limestone and mine the iron ore and coal. People left the land for the minor village which now began to increase in size.
450 years after Gilbert de Clare,7th Earl of Gloucester took possession of the land, later known as Merthyr parish, it is remarkable that three dynasties owned the majority of the freehold of the parish. At the beginning there were no maps to record existing land holdings and therefore landscape features assumed particular importance and the River Taff served as a boundary. Much of the land to the west of the river was owned by Lord Talbot whilst that to the east of the river was owned by the Earl of Plymouth with a portion around the parish church owned by the successors of the Lewis family. The leases for all four ironworks are set out in an authoritative work completed by John Lloyd in his 1906 book “The Early History of the Old South Wales Ironworks 1760 -1840”. This work draws on the extensive collection of leases drawn up by a Brecon firm of solicitors, Messrs Walter and John Powell. The first Cyfarthfa lease of 7th October 1765 with Anthony Bacon and William Brownrigg was for 4000 acres of land below the junction of the Taff Fawr and Taff Fechan, southwards down the valley, to the centre line of Aberdare mountain. The ancestry of William Talbot can be traced back to a Norman family in France, then to Sir Gilbert Talbot (1276-1346) Lord Chamberlain to King Edward III who married into the Welsh line of Prince Rhys Mechyll. William Talbot was created Earl Talbot of Hensol in 1761 and his legacy had spanned centuries intertwining noble ancestry, legal expertise and political service. His estates were extensive and he had links to Llancaiach Fawr in Nelson and Dynevor (Dinefwr) in Carmarthenshire. The family name is still linked to the premier noble seat of the Earl of Shrewsbury where the present Earl is also titled as Baron Talbot of Hensol.
The Cyfarthfa lease of 29 August 1765 with William Talbot was also joined with Michael Richards of Cardiff. There is some uncertainty as to this latter freeholder although there appears to be a connection with the Llancaiach estate and Rhyd-y-Car farm. It is likely that some time between 1685 and 1729, Jane, one of the two daughters of Colonel Edward Pritchard, sold her half share of the Merthyr estate to a Michael Richards who in a later lease is identified as the freeholder of Rhyd-y-Car farm. The other daughter, Mary, married David Jenkins of Hensol and their daughter married Charles Talbot in 1713. It is likely that the Talbots and Richards were closely connected by the date of the Cyfarthfa lease of 1765 and by then Michael Richards was of some social standing and wealth, living in Cardiff.
The lease for the land to the east of the river was held by the other major freehold interest with the 4th Earl of Plymouth of the 2nd Creation, Other Lewis Windsor Hickman, styled as Lord Windsor, made the Lord Lieutenant of Glamorgan in 1754. This family had combined a few years earlier with a wealthy landed Glamorgan family with firm links to the history of Merthyr Tydfil (Tudful). In 1589 the Lewis family had occupied the Courthouse (Cwrt) at the site of the present Labour Club in the centre of the town, then the location of the small parish village with the church of “The Martyr”. “The Cwrt” was possibly the court of the Welsh prince, Ifor Bach and then passed through his descendants to the Lewis family who left Merthyr and moved to Caerphilly at the time of Elizabeth I where they built a manor house with extensive parkland at the Van. Lewis of the Van became the Sheriff of Glamorgan in 1548 and in time the Glamorgan estates were gifted to the last survivor of the family line, Elizabeth, who married into the Earl of Plymouth line with the 3rd Earl of Plymouth in 1730 and hence the combined wealth of both families came into play.
In summary the ownership of land in Merthyr Tydfil (Tudful) changed from a sole landowner in 1267 with a small number of tenanted farms to increase to about 120 in 1630. Three quarters of the farms were rented and perhaps 14 to 25 freehold. Most of the freeholds were of relatively small acreage with substantial acreages in the hands of the few families who were descended from Norman lines. The Llancaiach estates and those of the Earles Plymouth and Talbot, and Richards, figure large in the leases for mineral rights agreed with the 4 local ironwork companies. Then the number of farms reduced and 100 years later the coal era building boom ensued to meet the needs of the new colliery villages. By that time the village became the growing town of Merthyr Tydfil, churches and chapels increased in number and the older churches reinforced their medieval rights as Glebe lands. As the 19th turned into the 20th century the vast majority of properties were leasehold however the Leasehold Reform Act of 1967 enabled leaseholders to acquire freehold interests and that ownership is now the norm.
In 1540, an English traveller, John Leland, spent some time travelling through Wales. Luckily, he kept an account of his journey, the relevant part about the Merthyr area is transcribed below.
“Merthyr Tydfil is in the commote of Senghenydd Uwch Caiach which is in the cantref of Eweinlwg. To go from east to west in the highest part of Glamorganshire towards the roots of the Black Mountains, is a sixteen mile of wild ground almost all.
Uwch Caiach stretcheth up to Taf by the east bank from Caiach to Morlays Castelle (sic), and two miles upward by north-north-east to Cae Drain, where the boundary is between Upper Monmouthshire, Breconshire and the Uwch Caiach part of Senghenydd.
Morlays Castelle standeth in a good valley of corn and grass and is on the right bank of the Morlays Brook*. This castle is a ruin and belongs to the King. Morlays Brook……comes out of the Breconshire hills, near Upper Monmouthshire and to Morlays Castelle, and about a mile lower in the parish called Merthyr it goeth into the east bank of the Taf.
There is a hill called Cefn Glas**, and stands between Cynon and Taf. This is the boundary between Miscin (sic) and Senghenydd. The ground between Cynon and Pennar is hilly and woody.
The water of the Taf cometh so down from woody hills and often bringeth down such log and trees, that the country would not be able to rebuild the bridges if they were stone, for they are so often broken.”
* Actually the Taf Fechan River
** Part of the Aberdare Mountain which overlooks Quakers Yard
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.
Today marks the 95th anniversary of the final service to be held at the ‘old’ Bethlehem Independent Chapel in Pontsticill before it was swept away when the Taf Fechan valley was flooded to create the Pontsticill Reservoir.
‘Old’ Bethlehem Chapel. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive
In 1826 several people who were followers of the Independent movement in Pontsticill started holding meetings in a local house, and they called on Rev T B Evans of Ynysgau Chapel to lead their meetings.
Within two years the small congregation had grown sufficiently for them to consider building their own chapel. With the support of Rev Evans, on 10 October 1898 they leased a plot of land from a local landowner – Philip Watkins, and built a small chapel which was opened for worship on 4 February 1829.
The first minister of Bethlehem was William David, a lay preacher at Ynysgau Chapel who was subsequently ordained and inducted as the minister of Bethlehem in 1830.
Although in a small community, the congregation at Bethlehem grew steadily and the chapel continued to thrive for the next 90 or so years.
Sometime during 1913, however, the congregation at the chapel learned that the part of the Taf Fechan Valley on which the chapel was built was due to be flooded in order to build the new reservoir. After much debate the trustees decided to build a new chapel in the centre of Pontsticill.
The farewell meeting was held in the old chapel on Monday 14 September 1925.
The farewell meeting at the old chapel. Photo courtesy of the Alan George archive
The Merthyr Tydfil Corporation gave the trustees a piece of land on which to build the new chapel and also £1,500 in payment for the old chapel. The new chapel was opened in 1925.
The new chapel
By the late 1960’s the congregation had severely dwindled, so in 1968, the trustees reluctantly decided to close the chapel. The building was subsequently sold and converted to a private house.
The ruins of the old chapel still remain beneath the Taf Fechan reservoir, and can sometimes be seen at times when the water level of the reservoir is very low.
In the pre-war era, one of the high-points of the year for many people would be the annual Sunday School outing. More often than not this would be to Pontsarn – catching the train from your local station to Pontsarn Station, refreshments in the specially built refreshment room and then fun and games at the side of the Taf Fechan river under the ‘Seven Arches’ as Pontsarn Viaduct was more often called.
Below is a photo of a Sunday School outing to Pontsarn from Adulam Chapel in the late 1920s or early ’30s.
Below is a more recent photo of the same area – still a lovely place, but deserted more often than not these days.
Long gone are Sunday School outings to Pontsarn. Long gone are Pontsarn Railway Station and Refreshment Rooms. Such a shame.
Do you remember Sunday School outings? Let me know all about your memories.
Many thanks to Hywel George, administrator of the Cynon Culture website for allowing me to use this article.
The land for a new building was given by Mrs Mary Williams of Penrhadwy. Vaynor, and work was about to start when Robert Thomson Crawshay, ironmaster at Cyfarthfa, four miles away, offered to build the church at his expense if the money already raised by the congregation, about £700, was put towards what is now St John’s in Cefn Coed. For many years this church was known as St Gwendoline’s, a mistaken dedication caused by confusion among scholars over Welsh and English usage.
A postcard of St Gwynno’s Church from the early 20th Century. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive
Father Silas Morgan Harris (1888-1982) corrected the name whose scholarship embraced the Welsh saints and the history of mediaeval Welsh church. St Gwynno appears to have been Abbot Gwynno, born either in 487 or 507, whose feast day falls on October 22 and one of that company of Celtic saints who travelled spreading Christianity throughout these lands. In Scotland he is known as Guinochus and also credited with founding Plouhinec in Britanny and Kilglin in Co. Meath in Ireland. A contemporary view of St Gwynno can be seen in the fine bas relief near the entrance; He is shown with his shepherd’s crook and the invocation ‘St Guinoce, OPN’ – his Latin name and initials of Latin invocation Ora Pro Nobis (Pray for Us). The sculpture is signed AJJA, work of Arthur Ayres, winner of the Prix de Rome 1931 whose works can be seen in major international permanent exhibitions.
This work is in memory of Canon William Henry Harris (1884-1956), elder brother of Father Silas. Both were born in Pontsticill and firmly on the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church. Canon Harris, known as Father Bill, was professor of Welsh at Lampeter, precentor of the chapel and canon treasurer of St David’s Cathedral. Continuing the family connection, the stained-glass window opposite, depicting the Blessed Virgin and Child, was given by the Harris brothers in memory of their mother, Ann, and is inscribed in Welsh with a line from the Hail Mary “Blessed art Thou amongst women”. The figure of the guardian angel further down the church could not be more distinctively Victorian. The angel is in memory of the four daughters and two sons of the Williams family at Penrhadwy, whose mother gave land for the church. All died in quick succession in their twenties and early thirties in the 11 years between 1859 and 1870.
The angel is by Joseph Edwards, Merthyr-born sculptor whose works are also to be found in Westminster Abbey. He was born in 1814, son of a stone-cutter, and is said to have been in love with one of the Penrhadwy daughters. The angel is reputed to have been modelled on her; one of the final three works in a career that saw 70 of his sculptures exhibited at Royal Academy.
The altar and reredos, with its carved woodwork and panelling, date from 1912 given in memory of Herbert Kirkhouse (died 1904, aged 72) a mining engineer at Cyfarthfa Works who married Maria Teresa, one of the Penrhadwy daughters. Maria Teresa is commemorated in the oak font, given by her son in 1930.The present St Gwynno’s was completed in 1868 a year before consecration by Dr Ollivant Bishop of Llandaff, standing in for Dr. Thirlwell, Bishop of St David’s.
The churchyard is noted for the grave of Robert Thomson Crawshay, the church’s benefactor, with its 11-ton granite slab inscribed ‘God Forgive Me.’ There are also graves of people at the lead edge when Merthyr was at the height of its industrial power, though many have been lost to the march of time.
The vegetation on the steep slope running down to the banks of Taf Fechan is now sanctuary to wild life, plant and animal; a protected nature reserve. Speed was not a speciality of Gruffydd Shon, the old bachelor, whose lady love tired of waiting for him and married a farmer. Gruffydd who died of a broken heart composed his own epitaph that existed as late as 1870 but vanished when his gravestone was broken during demolition of the old church. It read:
Here lies the body of Gruffydd Shon Covered here with earth and stone You may sweep it up or leave it alone It will be just the same to Gruffydd Shon.
In the 140 or so years since St Gwynno’s re-build it has shown signs of strain. In 1969 the church tower on the verge of collapse was taken down and remodelled with a new steeple costing £2000. In the 1980s the church was re-roofed with pantiles as near the original as possible; in the late 1990s the internal floor was replaced and whilst work was going on services were held in Pontsticill village hall; the churches own parish hail having been sold in a few years earlier. For most of its 1200 years St Gwynno’s was mother church for the scattered farms and cottages of Vaynor. When Dolygaer reservoir was completed in 1862 and work began on Taf Fechan reservoir in 1910, Pontsticill, the village that originated as home to those involved in the water industry, grew up a mile from the church where many of its congregation now live. The only other building in the immediate vicinity is the Church Tavern, built in 1823, which started life as a Court where law was administered and later became a celebrated local hostelry until its conversion into a house in 2000.
Below are two recent photos of St Gwynno’s Church – Old and New.
Following on from recent articles about floods in Merthyr, we have yet another article, this time from the Cardiff Times printed 110 years ago today (2 October 1909):
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.
We continue our series on Merthyr’s chapels with a look at one of the oldest causes in the Borough.
Hen Dy Cwrdd is the oldest chapel in the borough of Merthyr Tydfil. The chapel was originally built in 1747 when the Unitarians split from the congregation at Cwm-y-Glo and built their own small chapel at Cefn Coed.
This original building was built in a clearing in the wood between the Taf Fechan and the Taf Fawr rivers. It was a small barn-like structure, similar to the chapel at Cwm-y-Glo, with very small windows and a thatched roof. Indeed, the thatched roof wasn’t replaced by tiles until 1792.
An artists impression of the original Hen Dy Cwrdd Chapel
In 1765, Anthony Bacon built the first furnace at Cyfarthfa Iron Works and the wood was stripped of trees, and a small village began to grow in the clearing which became Cefn Coed y Cymer. Just over a century later, amid the rapid population explosion, a new chapel was built to cater for the ever growing congregation. The architect was John Lewis of Vaynor. £434 was collected via subscriptions by the members of the chapel and the new building opened in December 1853.
This chapel was very badly damaged in a storm and major repairs were necessary. The opportunity was taken to carry out various alterations and the chapel was virtually rebuilt in 1894/5 at a cost of £750, and so the present building took shape.
Hen Dy Cwrdd is considered to be an outstanding building and in 1985 it was listed by CADW Grade II, as being of Special Architectural and Historic Interest, and they made a considerable contribution to extensive refurbishment work, and in 1995-7 the chapel was re-erected using the masonry and fittings of the 1895 structure and is an almost exact replica of that building.
The reopening in 1997 coincided with the celebration of the chapel’s 250th Anniversary.
