The name Robert Lugar may not be one that most people are familiar with, but he is someone who has left an indelible mark on Merthyr’s history, as he was the architect who designed Cyfarthfa Castle.
Little is known of his early life, but he was born c.1773/4 in Colchester, the son of Edward Lugar, a carpenter. From about 1799 he was practising in London, being based at Featherstone Buildings, Holborn, and exhibited at the Royal Academy for the next twenty years. In 1812 he succeeded John Johnson as County Surveyor of Essex, a post which he held until 1816.
Lugar first made his mark with the publication of his first book ‘Architectural Sketches for Cottages, Rural Dwellings and Villas’ in 1805, and this was followed by ‘The Country Gentleman’s Architect’ in 1807. The following year he completed his first major commission Dunstall Priory, and this was followed in 1808-09 by Balloch and Tullichewen Castles. The resemblance between Tullichewen Castle and Cyfarthfa is remarkable.
Tullichewen Castle
In 1810, Lugar took on an apprentice to work with him at his Holborn offices – the 20 year old Archibald Simpson. Simpson would go on to be one of Scotland’s most important architects, who along with his rival John Smith is regarded as having fashioned the character of Aberdeen as “The Granite City”.
It was in 1824, that Lugar was commissioned by William Crawshay II to build a new home for him and his family, befitting his status as one of Merthyr’s great iron-masters. The new home designed by Lugar was Cyfarthfa Castle, which was completed by 1825 at a cost of £30,000.
Ground floor plan of Cyfarthfa Castle from 1827
In 1834, a fire all but destroyed the Houses of Parliament in London, and a competition was held to design a new building. Lugar entered the competition in collaboration with fellow architect John Burrell, but lost out to architect Charles Barry. Interestingly, Charles Barry is another architect closely connected with Merthyr – a friend of Lady Charlotte Guest; he designed both Dowlais Central Schools and the Guest Memorial Hall.
Robert Luger continued designing houses for the rest of his career, his most important works being Wyelands House in Monmouthsire (1830) and Bardon Hall in Leicestershire (1837). He died at his home at Pembroke Square, London on 23 June 1855, aged 82.
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.
Mr William Davies was the forge and mill manager at Cyfarthfa, and Mr John Jones, the furnace manager at Ynysfach. Mr Wiltshire was the vet or farrier (for the Veterinary College had not so many members then), but others also occur to me in other spheres of labour.
John Pritchard was the weigher on the top of the yard (approaching Gellideg). He was the father of the Dr Pritchard many of your readers may recall, living in High Street, opposite Glebeland Street. There was also a weigher at Ynysfach yard some few years later whose name I wish to mention; it was John Morgan, and his contributions to the mathematical part of the Gentleman’s Magazine of that time is ample evidence of his knowledge.
Possibly some of the descendents of those mentioned yet exist, and may read this – some can be recalled. Mr Davies, the mill manager had two daughters, one became Mrs John James (draper). Mr James married a Miss Kirkhouse, Llwyncelyn, an elder sister (half sister really) of the Rev Howell Kirkhouse. I do not think they had a family; nor can I recall either of Mr Jones’ brothers – William, who went to North Wales; or Charles, who went to London – having any; perhaps he (Charles) made up for it by becoming the secretary of the Welsh Girls’ School at Ashford.
William Crawshay II by an unknown artist. Courtesy of Cyfarthfa Castle Museum & Art Gallery
At the present time, when ‘combines’ for trade purposes are rife, and ever and anon a paragraph appears respecting what Mr Robert Thompson Crawshay said he would have done of the workmen had fallen in with his views, perhaps it may be appropriately state what Mr Wm. Crawshay did do in order to meet the varying conditions of demand for produce.
No matter what the marketable produce may have to be – whether bars, rails, sheets or slit rods – all were made from puddled bars rolled to 3 and 3½ inches wide and one-half to five-eighths thick; these were all cut when hot to suit the length of the ‘pile’, as a rule these may be about 18 inches only. After being cut to the length they were taken to an open place – there was one in front of what was afterwards erected and called the Pandy Mill – where they were packed up in the form of a shed, with the roof on, say 16 feet or 18 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 10 feet to the commencement of the slope forming the roof. The weight of one of these ‘houses’ would be about 500 tons. In very bad times, many of these would be built; I think as many as twenty have been seen at one time at the spot indicated, besides others elsewhere, so that there was a stack of 20,000 tons ready for working off when the demand required.
The value of a ton of puddled bars varied from £3 up, so that if 20s were added to the value, there was a virtual profit of about 30 percent on the full amount. Tin-plate manufacturers work for stock occasionally, and the pig-iron manufacturers can deposit their produce and obtain an advance thereon, but rail makers, or bar-iron makers cannot do so to a great extent. In the one case, because of the section, on on the other, the difficulty of avoiding the oxidation. Is it any wonder that the Crawshays are wealthy?
“Cyfarthfa Ironworks at Night” (1825) by Penry Williams. Courtesy of Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery
The following article is provided courtesy of ‘The Spooky Isles’ website.
140 years ago today in the August 17th 1881 edition of the Western Mail, the paper’s anonymous but “esteemed correspondent” sent in an “extraordinary narrative” which he “vouched for on the most unimpeachable authority.”
The story concerns the dormant ironworks at Cyfarthfa, Merthyr Tydfil and although the Mail declared its scepticism it published anyway because “the story is a good one.” And it is, very nicely told.
The Ironworks – A Little History
First opened in 1765 by a London merchant, by the 1790s the Cyfarthfa ironworks, under the direction of Richard Crawshay, became one of Britain’s most important iron producers – always handy for a nation almost perpetually at war somewhere in the world and in the midst of the industrial revolution.
The Crawshay family remained in charge, overseeing the works’ slow decline in the face of heavy foreign competition and rising costs. Still a hugely important local employer, profits from the ironworks were used to build William Crawshay II a grand home (Cyfarthfa Castle).
In 1875, the works closed, were re-opened and rebuilt to become a steelworks – a restructure that wasn’t completed until 1884, some time after the Western Mail’s story was published.
Cyfarthfa Works. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive
The Ghosts of Cyfarthfa Iron Works
The tale’s unnamed narrator begins by mysteriously half-explaining that he and a friend visited the works although why “must remain unexplained” and it was “towards the gloomiest part of the night that we sallied forth, and made our way over tramroads and intricate paths to the scene.”
From here, it’s worth simply quoting the rest of the correspondent’s description in full, reading as it does, like a classic Victorian ghost story a novelist might have conjured up.
“Cyfarthfa Works had been familiar to me for many years, but they were associated with the fullest activity, with the glare of furnaces, the whirl of the rolls; and that picture was vividly in my imagination when we stood at length before the works that were slumbering in thick darkness, and as silent as the grave.
No change could have been greater, no stillness more profound. We were far enough from the town to lose its glare and its noise, and out of the way of the people journeying from one place to another. No place could thus be more isolated, even as no contrast from the wild dash of work to the utter quietude could be more intense.
We stood a while just within the dense shadow of one of the mills, just tracing the ponderous wheels and the dimly outlined rolls when suddenly the two huge wheels creaked and began to revolve, the rolls to move, and in a moment there was all the whirl of industry again, only needing the glare of light and forms of men to assure us that the works were in full action.
My companion, with an exclamation of profound astonishment, clasped me by the arm. Cool, iron man as he is, strong-minded and proof against the superstitions of the age, I felt his voice tremble as he said, ‘This is most strange. There are no men here; the works are stopped; no steam, no motive power.’
And the grip on my arm became severe.
I, too, felt alarmed, and am not ashamed to confess it. My imagination, livelier than that of his, conjured up misty shades, and I saw shapes flitting to and fro, and heard the cry of men and boys amidst the clanging iron. Involuntarily we stepped back into the air, and as suddenly as the medley arose, so it died away; not a wheel moved, all was hushed, and at rest.”
‘Cyfarthfa Ironworks Interior at Night’, by Penry Williams
The Old Man
“We walked away a little distance, our purpose unaccomplished, and talked to each other about this extraordinary incident. My friend, better able than I to afford a clue, was, like myself, utterly at sea, and could give no explanation. ‘But,’ said he, resolutely, ‘it must be fathomed, and we will find it out.’
With those words he hurried back to the works. I followed, and in a few minutes again stood looking into the silent mill. There was the same strange hush, the same weird gloom that appeared palpable did we but attempt to grasp it; but no sound.
‘Was it fancy?’ said my friend with his cheerful laugh. He had scarcely spoken when the great wheel again revolved, and machinery here and there, to the right, to the left, ponderous wheels and rolls, all sprang into motion, and the din of work was perfect in its fullness.
With this came the clanging of falling iron, the rattle of trams sounded strangely alike and again the impression was strong that puddlers and moulders flitted by, and ghostly labour went on. This was sufficient for us.
We hurriedly left the scene, and on our way home met one of the old ironworkers of Cyfarthfa to whom my friend related the circumstance. He knew the man as an old and respectable inhabitant, and made no secret of what we had heard.
‘Ha,’ said the veteran, stopping and leaning on his stick, ‘I have heard it too’: and, sinking his voice, he continued, ‘it always comes when the works are stopped.
It did one time before, many years ago, and when Mr Richard [Crawshay, died 1810] was living it came again. No one can say what is the reason, and perhaps it is best not to make any stir about it.’”
To read the original article, and also some other ghostly stories about Merthyr, please visit:
William Crawshay II. Photo courtesy of Cyfarthfa Museum and Art Gallery
William Crawshay II was the third generation of the Crawshay dynasty of Cyfarthfa Ironworks. Born on 27 March 1788, he was the second son of William Crawshay I, only son of Richard Crawshay, who took over ownership of the works from Anthony Bacon.
When Richard Crawshay died in 1810, owing to arguments between him and his son, William (senior), the latter only acquired a three-eighths share of the Cyfarthfa Ironworks, despite being the only son and heir. Over the next decade, William Crawshay senior set about acquiring the remaining shares in the Works to make himself undisputed master of Cyfarthfa. He, preferred however to live away from Merthyr, overseeing the Crawshays’ London base at the wharves in George’s Yard, Upper Thames Street, so he appointed his son William (II) to manage the operation at Cyfarthfa.
When William Crawshay II assumed business responsibilities, Welsh iron was in its heyday and Cyfarthfa prospered under his charge: in 1810 the four blast furnaces producing approximately 11,000 tons of pig iron annually.
These early years were marked by a perennial battle with his father over the extent of his authority at the works. The elder Crawshay was determined to keep Cyfarthfa subordinate to the family’s merchant house at George Yard. This his son could not endure; he was intent on selling Cyfarthfa iron as he saw fit, without reference to his father and brothers in London. Yet despite the repeated tendering (and hasty withdrawals) of his resignation young William was unable to overcome his father. ‘My Dear Will, don’t play the fool,’ his father told him after one threatened resignation in 1820, ‘You are now Vice-Roy of Cyfarthfa and will be Sovereign early enough if you will be content to allow his present Majesty some shadow of Royalty’.
By 1823 the Cyfarthfa Ironworks was the largest in Britain, producing 24,200 tons of pig iron from eight blast furnaces, and William, who was at this time living at Gwaelodygarth House, decided that it was time to erect a new home befitting his status as Merthyr’s ‘Iron King’. He employed architect and engineer Robert Lugar, the same engineer who built many bridges and viaducts for the local railways, to design a huge neo-gothic ‘mock’ castle, complete with towers and turrets, standing in 158 acres of landscaped parkland, overlooking the Ironworks. Cyfarthfa Castle was completed in 1824, at a cost of £30,000.
William Crawshay I died in 1834, and William II became sole proprietor of the Cyfarthfa Works, and also inheriting a share in the London property. By the time Crawshay entered into his inheritance, however, the pre-eminence of Cyfarthfa was slipping. He could not prevent his works being overhauled by neighbouring Dowlais, where the Guests were more sensitively attuned to the crucial market for rails in the 1830s and 1840s. Indeed, the aloofness of the Crawshay dynasty was fast becoming an impediment to continued success: little notice was taken, for example, of the new steelmaking technology of the 1850s. In William Crawshay’s last years it was clear that the great days had passed.
As a young man Crawshay inclined to radicalism in politics. He was also a firm supporter of anti-truck legislation, sensing an opportunity to embarrass the Guests, who operated a truck system (the system of paying wages in goods instead of money) at Dowlais. During the Reform crisis he actively promoted the cause of parliamentary reform – while simultaneously introducing a programme of sudden wage cuts at depression-hit Cyfarthfa. This was a volatile course of action, and one to which contemporaries attributed the insurrectionary riots which swept Merthyr in June 1831, obliging Crawshay to write a hasty defence of his role in local affairs, “The Late Riots at Merthyr Tydfil”(1831).
During the later 1830s he swung abruptly into the Tory camp, although this was a plainly opportunistic manoeuvre to unseat Sir Josiah John Guest, who had been returned for the newly enfranchised borough of Merthyr in 1832 on a radical ticket.
William was married three times, each time to a bride with connections in the iron trade. He married first, in 1808, Elizabeth, the daughter of Francis Homfray (1725–1798) of Stourbridge, a member of the midland iron-making dynasty, and later proprietor of the Penydarren Ironworks. They had three sons, and Elizabeth died in 1813 giving birth to a daughter. Crawshay married second, in 1815, Isabel, the daughter of James Thompson of Grayrigg, Westmorland. Her uncle William Thompson (1793–1854), MP, lord mayor of London in 1828, was a partner in the Penydarren Ironworks, and her uncle Robert Thompson was the proprietor of the Tintern Abbey Ironworks in Monmouthshire. Isabel died in 1827, having given birth to two sons and seven daughters. Crawshay married third, in 1828, Isabella (d. 1885), the sister of Thomas Johnson, a partner in the Bute Ironworks in the Rhymney Valley, and they had a daughter.
William began spending an increasing amount of time at his estate at Caversham in Oxfordshire, which he bought in 1848, having previously leased it for many years, and it was at Caversham that he died on 4 August 1867. In his will, the Cyfarthfa Ironworks were passed on to his elder son from his second marriage – Robert Thompson Crawshay.
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.
A map by John Wood of Georgetown in 1836 showing the area (George Street) covered in this article.
In a cottage in the row, say 6 or 8 doors up, there was an old blind man, Thomas Evans, who had been a hammerman at Cyfarthfa. He was of the scientific society at the ‘Dynevor’, and was pleased if anyone would sit and read to him (this said advisedly and from experience).
Two dwellings followed owned by Mr David Williams (known as Williams of Pontyrhun). He was a widower, and had a family of two sons and two daughters. One of the later kept a school, but became Mrs John Jones (druggist etc.) of Aberdare. One of the sons, John, was the editor of the Silurian paper, which started at Brecon in the Whig interest, to whom the late Mr Peter Williams, of the Merthyr Telegraph, was apprenticed. The other son emigrated to Australia.
At the top, not many doors from the gate house, Mr Thomas Shepherd, then the cashier at Cyfarthfa Works lived. He removed to Navigation House after the death of Mr George Forrest, and then became superintendent of the Glamorganshire Canal.
Restarting from the bridge and crossing the tramroad, some short distance up on the left, a Mr Walter Morgan resided. He had been brought up as a solicitor, but was then in the brewery business. The brewery was situated behind the house, and had entrance from a road at the back.
An extract from the 1851 Public Health Map showing a more detailed view of the area in question. Mr Morgan’s Brewery (by 1851 called the Ship Brewery) is marked.
Mr Morgan had two daughters and one son. The eldest married, but her painfully sudden death seemed to show that she was not happy. The youngest became Mrs Macnamara, wife of a barrister, who became judge of one of the East Indian courts. Her brother, who also was a barrister, became the same, but whether both were in Calcutta or elsewhere cannot be recalled.
The ascent was steep shortly after passing Mr Morgan’s residence. A Captain Oakey lived in residence on the left and overlooked the flat portion of Georgetown etc. He had been at sea for many years and then lived retired.
Upon Mr Crawshay – the grandfather of the present generation – buying a lot of old stores from Woolwich, they were sent to Cyfarthfa to be manufactured into bar iron, and there were some pieces of ordnance as well as round balls amongst the lot. Mr Robert Thompson Crawshay had one at least of the cannons taken to the tip above Nantygwenith and fired them (for I think there was more than one). The good old captain, who was enjoying his siesta upon the first firing and stretched upon his sofa, from association of his past life rolled himself off the sofa and on to the floor. So strange is habit.
Hill House – the home of Captain Oakey. Hill House was later the home of several generations of the Williams Family for many years. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive
Above Captain Oakey’s was the house occupied by Mr Jeffries, the blast furnace manager at Cyfarthfa. There were then no other houses except an isolated cottage or two until Penyrheolgerrig was come to.
