Castle Coch, or Red Castle, built by William Burges for the 3rd Marquess of Bute between 1875 and 1891
CARDIFF, COUNTY TOWN of Glamorgan and successor to Machynlleth as CAPITAL OF WALES since 1955, is THE LARGEST CITY IN WALES and was once THE LARGEST COAL-AND IRON-EXPORTING PORT IN THE WORLD.
Although most of what we see today is the product of the Industrial Revolution and modern regeneration, Cardiff was first settled by the Romans in the 1st century. and the name is thought to derive from ‘Caer Didius’, or ‘Fort of Didius’, Audius Didius Gallus being the Roman governor of a nearby province.
One thousand years later, the Normans built a castle on the site of the Roman fort, and it was around this castle that the town of Cardiff began to grow. The stone keep of the Norman castle, built in 1121, still stands as the centrepiece of the whole Cardiff Castle complex. Roman bricks can be seen incorporated in its walls.
By the end of the 18th century, most of the land around Cardiff had passed by marriage into the hands of the 1st Marquess of Bute, and it was he who took the huge gamble to build the docks at Cardiff, to exploit the burgeoning coal and iron industries of the Welsh valleys. It paid off spectacularly, and in 1868 the 3rd Marquess put much of his wealth back into refurbishing the castle as a vast, flamboyant neo-Gothic palace, designed by the eccentric architect William Burges, and boasting opulent state rooms full of marble fireplaces and stained glass.
Across the road from the castle is what is often called THE FINEST CIVIC CENTRE IN BRITAIN, built in the first years of the 20th century, after Cardiff was granted city status by Edward VII in 1905. Included in a range of distinguished, white Portland stone buildings are the domed City Hall with its elaborate clock tower and marble statues of Welsh heroes, and the Welsh National Museum containing the fabulous collection of impressionist paintings donated by the Davies sisters of Gregynog (see Montgomeryshire).
What kick-started the development of Cardiff, from a quiet market town on the Taff river into one of the world’s busiest ports, was the opening in 1794 of the Glamorgan Canal, constructed to transport iron from Merthyr Tydfil, the largest town in Wales at that time, and home to the two largest ironworks in the world. Various reminders of this canal can still be seen, running from near the castle, south under the shopping centre and alongside Bute Street towards the sea. An old canal tunnel is now used as a pedestrian underpass beneath North Street near the castle.
In 1839, the 2nd Marquess of Bute opened the WEST BUTE DOCK, then THE BIGGEST MASONRY DOCK IN THE WORLD, ¾ mile (1.2 km) long and 200 ft (60 m) wide, carved out of 18 acres (7.3 ha) of swamp. The Taff Railway arrived the next year, bringing coal from the Valleys, more docks were built, and for the next 100 years Cardiff flourished.
During this time the area around the docks became known as TIGER BAY, a tough, uncompromising place that gained notoeriety in the 1959 film Tiger Bay, starring Hayley Mills.
Almost all the Tiger Bay area, now known as Butetown, has been redeveloped, but there are some interesting buildings that remain from the old docklands. The NORWEGIAN CHURCH was built in 1869 for the many Scandinavian sailors who made Cardiff their home. Children’s author ROALD DAHL (1916–90), born in Llandaff of Norwegian immigrant parents, was baptised here. He was named Roald after the polar explorer Roald Amundsen. In 1987, the church was dismantled and removed from its site near the West Bute Dock to its present location adjoining Roath Basin.
Back a bit from the docks, in Mount Stuart Square, is the COAL EXCHANGE, completed in 1886 when the price of the world’s coal was determined in Cardiff. In 1907 THE WORLD’S FIRST ONE MILLION POUND DEAL was struck here. The Coal Exchange is now a music venue.
There is a wonderful clash of visions on the waterfront, where the gorgeous and distinctive terracotta PIERHEAD BUILDING of 1897 squats in the shadow of the looming new WALES MILLENNIUM CENTRE, opened in 2004 as an arts and cultural venue, and home of the Welsh National Opera. Nearby is the SENEDD, new home of the National Assembly for Wales, which opened on St David’s Day 2006.
Key to the regeneration of the docks has been the CARDIFF BAY BARRAGE, stretching across the mouth of the bay for half a mile (0.8 km), which has created a huge 500-acre (200 ha) freshwater lake for sailing and water sports. The barrage incorporates THE LARGEST FISH PASS IN EUROPE, to allow salmon and sea trout access into the River Taff for breeding.
A 2-mile (3.2 km) walk north-west along the River Taff from the city centre, but a world away from the bustle and the tumult, is LLANDAFF CATHEDRAL, nestling in a hollow on a site made holy in the 6th century. The present building was begun in 1107 and has been substantially altered over the centuries. The Victorian restoration was badly bombed in 1941, but the cathedral was rebuilt and reopened in 1957. This is a lovely quiet spot with a cloistered village atmosphere, although the cathedral looks a bit lopsided with just one of the western towers carrying a spire. The interior is unexpected and breathtaking, with the nave spanned by a huge parabolic arch, crowned with a cylinder housing the organ pipes, and carrying an aluminium statue of Christ in Majesty by Jacob Epstein.
IVOR NOVELLO (1893–1951), silent movie star, musical theatre actor and songwriter, born David Ivor Davies in Cowbridge Road East. His song ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’ was hugely popular with British troops during the First World War, and he had another wartime success in the Second World War with ‘We’ll Gather Lilacs’. His name lives on in the IVOR NOVELLO AWARDS, established by the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters to honour the talents of songwriters and composers.
TERRY NATION, television scriptwriter and inventor of Doctor Who’s greatest foe, the Daleks, born in Llandaff in 1930. Fittingly, the new generation Doctor Who series is filmed in Cardiff, as is the adult spin-off, Torchwood, which is also set in and around Cardiff.
Dame SHIRLEY BASSEY, singer, born in Tiger Bay, in 1937, the the youngest of seven children, to Eliza and Nigerian sailor Henry. Famed for her ‘big’ voice, she has had many hits including ‘Kiss Me Honey Honey Kiss Me’ and ‘Hey, Big Spender’. She also sang the theme tunes to three James Bond films, Goldfinger, Diamonds are Forever and Moonraker.
JOHN HUMPHRYS, journalist and broadcaster, best known as anchor for the Today programme on Radio 4, born in 1943.
KEN FOLLETT, thriller writer, born in 1949.
GRIFF RHYS JONES, TV comedian, born 1953. Came to prominence in Not the Nine O’Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones, and recently presented the BBC’s Restoration programme.
JEREMY BOWEN, TV journalist and broadcaster, born in 1960.
COLIN JACKSON, world record-breaking athlete, born in 1967.
CERYS MATTHEWS, singer, born in 1969. Now a solo artist, she found fame as lead singer of the band Catatonia.
CHARLOTTE CHURCH, singer, born in Llandaff in 1986. In 1998 she became THE YOUNGEST ARTIST EVER TO TOP THE CLASSICAL CHART with her debut album Voice of an Angel.
The Arthurian knight SIR LANCELOT is said to have sailed from Cardiff after his banishment from King Arthur’s court.
In 1910, ROBERT FALCON SCOTT sailed from Cardiff in the Terra Nova to begin his fateful trip to the South Pole. There is a monument to him in Roath Park in the form of a lighthouse, with a replica of the Terra Nova, and in 2003 a Captain Scott Memorial was unveiled on the waterfront, near the spot from where the ship sailed.
Cardiff’s MILLENNIUM STADIUM hosted the final of THE LAST WORLD SPORTING EVENT OF THE 20TH CENTURY, the RUGBY WORLD CUP in 1999.
Cardiff is home to THE ONLY FIRST-CLASS COUNTY CRICKET TEAM IN WALES, GLAMORGAN COUNTY CRICKET CLUB.
CARDIFF CITY are THE ONLY NON-ENGLISH FOOTBALL CLUB EVER TO WIN THE FA CUP. They beat Arsenal 1–0 in the final at Wembley in 1927.
Cardiff has MORE PARKS AND OPEN SPACES PER HEAD OF POPULATION THAN ANY OTHER CITY IN BRITAIN.
SPILLERS RECORDS, in Cardiff’s The Hayes, opened in 1894 and is THE OLDEST RECORD SHOP IN THE WORLD and THE OLDEST RECORDED MUSIC BUSINESS IN THE WORLD.
AT PORT TALBOT is one of the last remaining steelworks in Britain. Film director Ridley Scott said that Port Talbot at night, with its endless miles of fiery smoke stacks and belching chimneys, was the inspiration for his vision of the future in the 1982 science fiction film Blade Runner. Port Talbot was once one of the biggest steelworks in Europe. The Abbey Works is over 1 mile (1.6 km) long.
The abbey referred to is MARGAM ABBEY, just across the motorway to the south-east. It was founded as a Cistercian house in 1147 by Robert of Gloucester, and grew into one of the largest and wealthiest in Wales. Most of it has disappeared, but the magnificent Norman nave of the abbey church is now used as the parish church. Two campanile bell towers were added in the 19th century, giving the church an Italian look, all of which makes the superb Norman doorway and pillars come as an unexpected delight.
The medieval buildings beside the church, which once housed one of Britain’s oldest schools, are now the home of the Margam Stones Museum, an extraordinary collection of early Christian sculpture, dating from Roman times to the 11th century. The star of the collection is, without doubt, the intricate 10th-century CROSS OF CYNFELYN.
At the Dissolution of the Monasteries Margam passed to the Mansel family, whose impressive alabaster tombs can be seen in the church. By the 18th century, through various marriages, Margam had passed to an English branch of the family, the Talbots of Lacock in Wiltshire, and it is this family that gave its name to Port Talbot.
Alongside the church is the highlight of Margam, the astounding Georgian ORANGERY. It was designed in 1787 by Anthony Keck for Thomas Mansel Talbot and is 275 ft (84 m) in length – THE LONGEST ORANGERY IN BRITAIN.
In 1830, Christopher Talbot, the long-time Liberal MP for Glamorgan, asked Thomas Hopper, architect of Penrhyn Castle in Caernarfonshire, to build him a huge Gothick country castle to replace that of his ancestors. Today, MARGAM CASTLE forms the centrepiece of Margam Country Park.
It is an almost surreal experience to wander around the peaceful bowers of Margam, enjoying the old church, the elegant Orangery, the red deer grazing in the woods, the children playing on the lawns in front of the great Victorian castle, while in the background great apocolyptic clouds of smoke and chemicals billow into the air from the steelworks.
IN ONE SMALL area of NEATH, by the river, it is possible to see monuments from every stage of the town’s development over the last 2,000 years.
Neath was founded in AD 120 as an important Roman base called Nidum, at the crossing place of the River Neath. Traces of Nidum can still be seen near the ruins of Neath Abbey, founded in 1129 and once the largest abbey in Wales. John Leland, the 16th-century antiquary, described Neath Abbey as ‘the fairest abbey of all Wales’. The remains of the abbey are quite well preserved, as is the Tudor mansion built within the precincts after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Best of all is a gorgeous 13th-century undercroft.
In the 18th century industry arrived, and dotted along the river there are the remnants of some substantial smelting furnaces and chimneys. One of the first to realise the potential of Neath’s location, near the coast, with fast-flowing rivers and plenty of raw materials, was SIR HUMPHREY MACK-WORTH (1657–1727), founder of the SPCK, or Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge.
The first NEATH FAIR was held on 1280. It is still held every September and is THE OLDEST FAIR IN WALES.
The WELSH RUGBY UNIOn was founded at the Castle Hotel in Neath in 1881. Neath RFC is THE OLDEST RUGBY CLUB IN WALES.
RAY MILLAND (1907–86), film star, born Reginald Alfred John Truscott-Jones. He chose the name Milland from an area of his home town, Neath. He was a trooper with the Royal Household Cavalry for three years. Won the Best Actor Oscar in 1945 for his portrayal of an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend.
RICHARD BURTON (1925–84), actor, born Richard Walter Jenkins, in a modest end-of-terrace house below the viaduct at Pontrhydyfen, between Neath and Port Talbot. The 12th of 13 children, he took his stage name from his English teacher Philip Burton. He was twice married to and twice divorced from Elizabeth Taylor, and his most memorable film roles were playing opposite her in Cleopatra, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Taming of the Shrew and Under Milk Wood. He was buried in Celigny, on Lake Geneva, to the strains of the Welsh rugby anthem ‘Sospan Fach’, and with a copy of The Complete Works of Dylan Thomas. A few feet away lies Alastair Maclean, author of the novel Where Eagles Dare, adapted for one of Richard Burton’s most memorable screen roles.
LORD HOWE OF ABERAVON, longest surviving minister from Margaret Thatcher’s original 1979 Cabinet, born in Port Talbot in 1926. Being attacked by Geoffrey Howe was, according to Denis Healey, ‘like being savaged by a dead sheep’. He managed to bring down Margaret Thatcher, however, with a little help from Swansea-born Michael Heseltine.
SIR ANTHONY HOPKINS, actor, born in Port Talbot in 1937. Best known for playing the flesh-eating serial killer Hannibal Lecter in the film Silence of the Lambs, for which he won the Best Actor Oscar in 1991. On becoming President of the National Trust’s Snowdonia Appeal, he said, ‘Supporting the National Trust’s purchase of this part of lovely Snowdonia gave me the opportunity to do something positive for Wales, my birthplace.’
BONNIE TYLER, singer, born in the village of SKEWEN, near Neath Abbey, in 1953. Best known for her 1980s hit singles ‘Holding Out for a Hero’ and ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’.
KATHERINE JENKINS, ‘the world’s most glamorous soprano’, was born in Neath in 1980. At the age of 23 she signed THE BIGGEST CLASSICAL RECORDING DEAL OF ALL TIME for six albums with Universal Music. She is THE ONLY PERSON EVER TO HAVE HELD THE NO. 1 AND NO. 2 SPOTS IN THE CLASSICAL ALBUM CHART AT THE SAME TIME, and THE ONLY FEMALE ARTIST EVER TO WIN TWO CONSECUTIVE CLASSICAL BRIT AWARDS. She is also the official mascot for the Welsh rugby team. Despite all this international acclaim she says, ‘I love coming back to Neath – this is home and always will be.’
SWANSEA IS THE SECOND LARGEST CITY IN WALES after Cardiff. Destructive heavy industries, one of Britain’s worst-ever earthquakes, measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale, in June 1906, and severe bombing during the Second World War destroyed much of the architectural heritage, but one of the world’s largest regeneration projects has transformed the Lower Swansea Valley, and the town has maintained its long-held reputation as a dynamic cultural centre.
The name Swansea comes from ‘Sweyne’s Ey’, or island, and it was the Danish King Sweyne who first settled a small fishing village at the mouth of the River Tawe. A Norman castle followed in the 12th century, and shipbuilding flourished. But it was at the start of the Industrial Revolution that Swansea boomed, with its cheap coal and plentiful supply of water power. Copper from Cornwall was brought to Swansea for smelting, and by the early 19th century the Lower Swansea Valley was THE BIGGEST COPPER PROCESSING AREA IN THE WORLD, and the Hafod works, THE LARGEST COPPER WORKS IN THE WORLD. At this time Swansea was known as ‘Copperopolis’.
In 1850, Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s LONGEST-EVER WOODEN VIADUCT, 1,760 ft (536 m), across the River Tawe at Landore opened up the area for more industry. In 1868, at Landore, William Siemens built THE FIRST STEELWORKS TO SUCCESSFULLY MANUFACTURE STEEL USING THE NEW OPEN-HEARTH FURNACE METHOD, and this factory became, for a time, THE BIGGEST STEELWORKS IN THE WORLD.
Copper processing is a particularly messy business, and when the copper factories finally shut up shop in the 1960s (the Vivian works was the last to close in 1982), they left a dead wasteland of slagheaps and foul water, where no trees would grow and yellow clouds of sulphur hung over the landscape. It was THE LARGEST AREA OF INDUSTRIAL DERELICTION IN EUROPE. Since then, thanks to a huge regeneration project, the Lower Swansea Valley has been transformed into shopping and sports complexes, a yachting marina and Maritime Quarter, parks and cycling trails.
In the Maritime Quarter is WALES’S NEWEST MUSEUM, THE NATIONAL WATERFRONT MUSEUM, which tells the story of Wales’s industrial and maritime history. Wales was, in fact, THE WORLD’S FIRST INDUSTRIAL NATION – it was THE FIRST NATION IN THE WORLD TO EMPLOY MORE PEOPLE IN INDUSTRY THAN IN AGRICULTURE.
Nearby is THE OLDEST MUSEUM IN WALES, THE SWANSEA MUSEUM, which records the history of Swansea.
At the top of the extraordinary, Phoenician-looking TOWER OF THE ECLIPTIC OBSERVATORY, on the beach, is THE LARGEST TELESCOPE IN WALES.
Swansea’s GRAND THEATRE, in the city centre, was opened in 1897 by the diva Adelina Patti. Today it is home to the Ballet Russe, THE ONLY CLASSICAL BALLET COMPANY RESIDENT IN WALES.
South-west of the city centre at Victoria Park is the Patti Pavilion, donated to Swansea by Adelina Patti in 1918. The building was originally the ‘winter garden’ at her home Craig-y-Nos in Breconshire. It is now used as a theatre.
The BRANGWYN HALL, part of the Guildhall complex, houses the five colourful British Empire Panels by war artist Frank Brangwyn, depicting the Empire in all its majesty. They were completed in 1932 for the House of Lords, but rejected for being too vivid and unrestrained. Westminster’s loss was Swansea’s gain.
Swansea produced both THE FIRST WELSH NEWSPAPER, The Cambrian (1804), and THE FIRST WELSH-LANGUAGE WEEKLY, Seren Gomer (1814)
Swansea is home to the WELSH NATIONAL POOL, THE LARGEST COVERED MARKET IN WALES, and the DVLA, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.
RICHARD ‘BEAU’ NASH (1674–1762), the ‘King of Bath’.
DYLAN THOMAS (1914–53), poet, born at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive. Thomas’s birthplace is used for occasional literary events, and there is a memorial to him in Cwmdonkin Park, where ‘the ball I threw while playing in the park has not yet reached the ground’ (see Carmarthenshire). The Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea was opened in 1995 by one of his greatest fans, former US President Jimmy Carter.
SIR HARRY SECOMBE (1921–2001), singer, entertainer and Goon. He shared a birthday, 8 September, with fellow Goon Peter Sellers.
MICHAEL HESELTINE, politician, in 1933. He was Margaret Thatcher’s nemesis, along with Geoffrey Howe of Port Talbot.
DR ROWAN WILLIAMs, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1950.
RUSSELL T. DAVIES, television scriptwriter and producer of the new Doctor Who series, in 1963.
JACK, Swansea’s famous black labrador retriever. Over seven years he rescued 27 people from drowning in Swansea docks. There is a monument to him on the foreshore near St Helen’s stadium.
THE MUMBLES, A Victorian resort town on the southern tip of Swansea Bay, was the western terminus for THE WORLD’S FIRST PASSENGER RAILWAY. On 25 March 1807, a converted railroad car, full of paying passengers, was hitched up to a horse and drawn on rails around the perimeter of Swansea Bay, and into history. For the next 150 years the Swansea to Mumbles Railway continued to convey passengers along the 5-mile (8 km) long route, utilising at various times horses, sail, steam, diesel and THE LARGEST TRAMS IN BRITAIN. It closed, sadly, in 1960, but there is a Mumbles Railway Preservation Society that hopes one day to resurrect this important part of Wales’s, and the world’s, heritage.
The Mumbles LOVESPOON GALLERY gives a fascinating insight into a uniquely Welsh custom that dates back many centuries, to when young men would carve out intricately patterned spoons from a single piece of wood, and present them to the object of their desire as a sign of devotion. If the girl kept the spoon it showed that she returned the affection.
CATHERINE ZETA-JONES, the actress and British Tap Dancing Champion, was born in The Mumbles in 1969. Catherine’s middle name Zeta is a tribute to her grandmother, who was named after a boat in Swansea harbour. Catherine first came to prominence in Britain as Mariette in the television adaptation of H.E. Bates’s The Darling Buds of May. In 2000, she married Hollywood superstar Michael Douglas, and in 2003, she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Chicago. Catherine and Michael Douglas now maintain a home in The Mumbles.
The Mumbles gets its name from the French word ‘mamelles’, meaning ‘breasts’, and refers to two little islands just offshore. This sauciness cannot have pleased the most famous resident of the churchyard of All Saints in Oystermouth, the little fishing village around which The Mumbles originally developed. THOMAS BOWDLER (1754–1825) was a literary censor whose most famous work was an expurgated ‘Family Shakespeare’, cleansed of any smutty words or phrases unfit to be read out in front of the whole family. So strict were his criteria, particularly as applied to sex, that the term ‘bowdlerise’, meaning to censor prudishly, has entered the English language.
LIKE SOME SLEEPING volcano, Merthyr Tydfil slumbered in peace for many hundreds of years, overlooked, undiscovered and insignificant. Then, one day, it stretched, spasmed, erupted, spewed forth iron, basked in the glow of a million furnaces, made the world take notice, and then went quiet again.
Cyfarthfa Castle
It’s quiet today. Just a few tendrils of steam and not much left to show of its turbulent past. Walking around it now you would never guess that Merthyr Tydfil built the world. From here came the cannons that beat Napoleon, the railways that encircled the globe, the girders that raised towers into the sky. The name Merthyr Tydfil is somehow quaint, unthreatening, the sort of place you might have heard of but you don’t really know where it is. However, in the space of 200 years, this little town lived through more history than most places on earth ever will. In 1700, it was a little village of 700 souls, its back to the Brecon Beacons, gazing down a long valley to the sea. A mere 100 years later it was THE BIGGEST TOWN IN WALES, home to 50,000 workers, IRON CAPITAL OF THE WORLD and the workshop of the Industrial Revolution.
Ore in the hills, limestone in the Beacons, water running down from both. Merthyr was the perfect place to make iron. When wars and industries and new inventions demanded iron, they came to Merthyr Tydfil. The first large ironworks in Merthyr was the DOWLAIS IRONWORKS, established in 1759. Dowlais manufactured the rails for the world’s first passenger steam railway from Stockton to Darlington in 1821, for the Trans-Siberian railway and for the railways that opened up the West in America. It was THE FIRST MAJOR IRONWORKS IN THE WORLD TO PRODUCE IRON USING THE BESSEMER PROCESS.
In 1835, a boiler exploded at Dowlais, killing a number of men, and one of the ironworks’ engineers, ADRIAN STEPHENS, realised that some sort of warning device was needed to indicate when too much pressure was building up inside the boiler. He devised a copper tube, inserted into the boiler, which whistled when the pressure reached a dangerous level. This STEAM WHISTLE was later adapted for trains and steamships.
In 1833, the owner of Dowlais, JOSIAH JOHN GUEST, married Lady Charlotte Bertie, the Earl of Lindsey’s only daughter who, as LADY CHARLOTTE GUEST, translated and wrote down the Mabinogion, from Welsh myths and Dark Age tales (see Pembrokeshire).
By 1865 Dowlais was THE BIGGEST IRONWORKS IN THE WORLD, taking over from Cyfarthfa (see below). It was the last of the great ironworks to close, in 1936, and all that is left of it today is the grand Georgian stable house, saved from demolition and converted into accommodation.
CYFARTHFA IRONWORKS opened in 1765 and, by the start of the 19th century, had, in its turn, become THE LARGEST IRONWORKS IN THE WORLD. In 1802, Nelson came to Cyfarthfa to see the cannons being made for his ships, and was shown around by the owner RICHARD CRAWSHAY. In 1825, Craw-shay’s grandson WILLIAM built himself a castle at the top of the hill, from where he could look down upon his empire. CYFARTHFA CASTLE is now a school and museum, while the surrounding gardens afford the most fascinating views over Merthyr. The Cyfarthfa Ironworks reached their greatest heights under Robert Thompson Crawshay (1817–89), who is buried outside the church he had built at Vaynor, on the edge of the Brecon Beacons north of the town. His tombstone is inscribed ‘God Forgive Me’.
Close to the site of the Cyfarthfa Ironworks, which closed in 1919 and were dismantled in 1928, you can still see THE WORLD’S FIRST IRON RAILWAY BRIDGE, the PONTYCAFNAU, constructed in 1793.
21 February 1804 was a momentous day that saw THE FIRST STEAM LOCOMOTIVE EVER TO RUN ALONG RAILS, complete THE WORLD’S FIRST RAILWAY JOURNEY BY STEAM, 9 miles (14.5 km) from Penydarren, Merthyr Tydfil, to Navigation, Abercynon. Ironmaster SAMUEL HOMFRAY of the Penydarren Works had bet Richard Crawshay of Cyfarthfa, 500 guineas that RICHARD TREVITHICK‘S self-propelling steam locomotive could haul 10 tons of iron along the route, and Homfray won his bet. Trevithick covered the distance in just over four hours at a speed of 5 mph (8 kph), carrying not only five wagon-loads of iron but also 70 passengers who clung on to the wagons to enjoy the experience. It is possible to follow the route of this historic journey most of the way on foot. There are various memorials along the way and, best of all, you can actually walk through THE WORLD’S FIRST RAILWAY TUNNEL, underneath the site of the old Plymouth Ironworks.
The footpath takes you close to CHAPEL ROW, a fascinating example of workers’ houses that has survived from the early 19th century, and where, at No. 4, the composer JOSEPH PARRY (1841–1903) was born.
In 1831 there was an outbreak of sustained rioting that became known as the MERTHYR RIOTS. Iron workers complaining about their appalling wages and conditions marched on the Castle Hotel in the town centre, where troops opened fire on the crowd, killing 26. This was a worse loss of life than at the infamous Peterloo Massacre of 1819 in Manchester, but it got no headlines. Much followed from the Merthyr Riots, however. It was the first time workers had marched under the RED FLAG, in this case a shirt soaked in calf’s blood, and when KIER HARDIE was elected by Merthyr Tydfil as THE FIRST-EVER LABOUR MP in 1900, he campaigned under the banner of the Red Flag, which has remained a symbol of the genuine Labour movement ever since. The man who carried the Red Flag, Richard Lewis, known as DIC PENDERYN, was sentenced to death for stabbing and wounding a soldier, and is buried at the gate of St Mary’s Church in Aberavon, one of the first working-class martyrs.
PONTYPRIDD SITS AT the confluence of the Rhondda and Taff rivers at the entrance to the Rhondda Valleys. The name is Welsh for ‘bridge of earth’, the place where the Taff was shallow enough to ford.
In 1756, WILLIAM EDWARDS, a Methodist preacher and farmer who had taught himself stonemasonry, decided there should be a new way to cross the Taff, without having to get your feet wet, and so he built a bridge. And what a bridge! A single, perfect, rainbow arch, 140 ft (43 m) across, THE LONGEST SINGLE STONE ARCH IN THE WORLD, for many years to come. And a sign that the Industrial Revolution was on its way to the Valleys.
It took three attempts to build the bridge. The first structure, made of wood, was washed away by floods, and the second, built of stone, collapsed under its own weight. Success was finally achieved by inserting three holes in the stonework at each end of the bridge, to make the structure lighter and less wind resistant. It has now stood for 250 years, an elegant symbol of this ‘Gateway to the Valleys’. Some people think that the glory of the arch has been spoilt by the flat road bridge built alongside it in 1857, but for others it just goes to accentuate the sublime grace of the original.
In Pontypridd’s Ynysangharad Park there is a monument consisting of two statues representing Poetry and Music, designed in 1930 by Sir Goscombe John, as a memorial to local weaver EVAN JAMES (1809–78) and his son JAMES JAMES (1832–1902), who together composed the WELSH NATIONAL ANTHEM, ‘Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’, or ‘Land of My Fathers’.
Near here was the chain works of Brown Lenox, which produced chains using a revolutionary new kind of link, devised by SIR SAMUEL BROWN, that enabled chains to be used for bigger and heavier structures. Brown Lenox’s chains were used in the construction of the world’s first suspension road bridge, the Union Chain Bridge in Northumberland, and the world’s first seaside pleasure pier, the Chain Pier in Brighton, Sussex, as well as on many ships such as the Queen Mary and HMS Hood.
On Pontypridd Common is the Rocking Stone, at the centre of a Druid’s Circle of smaller stones constructed by Victorian Druid revivalists, and used for rituals by, amongst others, Dr William Price (see Llantrisant). It is called the Rocking Stone because, if you push on the top part of the stone, it gently rocks.
Opera stars SIR GERAINT EVANS (1922–92) and STEWART BURROWS (born 1933) both come from Cilfnydd, near Pontypridd, and were born in the same street.
Legendary singer and entertainer SIR TOM JONES was born Thomas Jones Woodward in Treforest, Pontypridd, in 1940. Renowned for his unmistakable delivery of hit songs such as ‘It’s Not Unusual’ (1965), ‘The Green Green Grass of Home’ (1966) and ‘Delilah’ (1968). In 2000 he was invited by US President Bill Clinton to sing at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial as part of the Washington Millennium Celebrations. In May 2005 he gave his first performance in Pontypridd since 1964 for a special concert in Ynysangharad Park in front of 25,000 people, including Katherine Jenkins, to mark his 65th birthday.
Just north of Pontypridd is PORTH, where one of Wales’s worst mining disasters occurred in 1856, when 114 men and boys were killed in an explosion at the Cymmer mine. In 1887, a new mine next to the Cymmer pit flooded, and for ten days the world held its breath while dramatic attempts were made to rescue the trapped miners using divers. Five miners were eventually brought safely to the surface, while nine were lost. The incident inspired Joseph Parry to compose the ‘Miner’s Anthem’.
In 1895, in Porth, William Evans began to manufacture his home-made ginger beers and lemonades that became CORONA ‘POP’, exported around the world. Closed in 1987, the Corona Pop factory was reborn in the new millennium as the Pop Factory, a music studio and TV complex.
LLANTRISANT IS THE home of the ROYAL MINT, which moved here in 1968 from Tower Hill in London.
In the centre of the town is a statue commemorating the amazing DR WILLIAM PRICE (1800–93). He believed he was a descendant of Druids and held Druidical ceremonies at the Rocking Stone in Pontypridd. He was going to build himself a Druid palace at Glyntaf, but only got around to putting up two round towers as a gatehouse (they are still there). His idea of natty dressing was a scarlet waistcoat, green trousers, a white cloak and a whole fox fur on his head, complete with dangling legs and brush. As a doctor he was an advocate of free love, nudism and a vegetarian diet, and he was also an early ‘Green’, issuing dire warnings about the perils of encroaching industrialisation.
In 1884, his eccentricity suddenly took on a national significance, when he went to Caerlan, a hill outside Llantrisant, and set fire to an oil drum, inside which was the body of his five-month-old son, who had died in infancy a couple of months earlier. He was arrested and tried in Cardiff, but argued so effectively for the right of people to have their remains cremated rather than buried, that he was acquitted, and the case led directly to THE LEGALISATION OF CREMATION IN BRITAIN. He lived happily ever after, even becoming a father again, by his young housekeeper, at the age of 90. When he died in 1893, he was legally cremated on the hill at Caerlan in front of a large crowd, in THE FIRST PUBLIC CREMATION IN BRITAIN.
WINSTON CHURCHILL, JFK, Charlie Chaplin, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Arthur Conan Doyle – what brought them all to a rugged 14th-century castle on a windswept cliff top in South Wales?
In 1925, the world’s most powerful newspaper tycoon, WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST, bought ST DONAT’S CASTLE for his mistress, the talented actress and comedienne Marion Davies, and spent huge sums of money restoring it. He scoured Europe for treasures to fill the castle, installing not just pictures and furniture but ceilings, screens, fireplaces and sometimes whole rooms from other medieval castles, abbeys and churches. St Donat’s was transformed into the Hollywood ideal of a castle, and Hearst invited a Hollywood-style guest list to complete the image. Eventually, as tycoons do, Hearst got bored with the project and started to dismantle St Donat’s in order to provide for his new toy, Hearst Castle, at San Simeon in California.
In 1960, KURT HAHN, the founder of Gordonstoun school in Scotland, turned St Donat’s into the UNITED WORLD COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC, THE WORLD’S FIRST INTERNATIONAL SIXTH-FORM COLLEGE – its current President is Nelson Mandela.
CAERPHILLY CASTLE is THE LARGEST CASTLE IN WALES and there are only two bigger, Dover and Windsor, in the whole of Britain. Caerphilly was begun in 1268 by Gilbert de Clare, and was THE VERY FIRST PURPOSE-BUILT CONCENTRIC CASTLE IN BRITAIN. The curtain wall is 960 ft (293 m) in circumference, and is itself surrounded by a huge, water-filled moat, creating a fortified area of 30 acres (12 ha). When Oliver Cromwell’s troops slighted the castle during the Civil War, to make it no longer ‘fit for purpose’, they failed to bring down the south-east tower, which now tilts at an alarming angle. Indeed, at 82 ft (25 m) high and 10 ft (3 m) out of true, the ‘Leaning Tower of Caerphilly’ leans further than Pisa’s celebrated monument.
Creamy, crumbly CAERPHILLY CHEESE, after some years’ absence, is once more made in Caerphilly.
The peerless comedian TOMMY COOPER (1922–84) remembered for his fez and his conjuring tricks was born in Caerphilly.
THE WORST MINING DISASTER IN BRITISH HISTORY occurred at the UNIVERSAL COLLIERY AT SENGHENYDD, near Caerphilly, when an explosion wrecked the pit-head gear and sent flames shooting through the miles of tunnels below. At the time the day shift was working at full capacity, and 439 men and boys perished.
There is no more poignant place in all the Valleys than the hillside cemetery at ABERFAN, where two long rows of graves stand testament to that awful morning on 21 October 1966, when an avalanche of slurry, from a coal-pit on Merthyr Hill, engulfed Pantglas Primary School, killing 144 people, 116 of them children.
Actor STANLEY BAKER (1937–76), best remembered for his role as Lt John Chard in the film Zulu, was born in FERNDALE.
The TOWER COLLIERY in HIRWAUN, run as a co-operative by the miners themselves, is THE LAST WORKING DEEP MINE IN WALES. In 1757, an ironworks was opened here by John Maybery, THE FIRST PLACE IN WALES THAT USED COKE TO SMELT IRON ORE IN PLACE OF CHARCOAL.
Entertainer MAX BOYCE was born in GLYNNEATH in 1945.
The coal-mine at GLYNNEATH is THE LARGEST OPEN-CAST COAL-MINE IN EUROPE.
In 1979, the Rhondda village of MAERDY elected MRS ANNIE POWELL as BRITAIN’S FIRST COMMUNIST MAYOR.
The tiny mining village of GILFACH GOCH, to the west of Pontypridd, was the setting for Richard Llewellyn’s 1939 novel How Green Was My Valley, turned into a classic film by John Ford in 1941.
When completed in 1930, the CEFN COLLIERY at Creunant, near Neath, was THE DEEPEST ANTHRACITE MINE IN THE WORLD, 2,250 ft (686 m) deep. It is now home to the Cefn Coed Colliery Museum.
THE WORLD’S FIRST MESSAGE EVER SENT BY RADIO was transmitted by Guglielmo Marconi on 11 May 1897, from LAVER-NOCK POINT, south of Penarth, to a mast on Flat Holm in the Bristol Channel, a distance of 3 miles (4.8 km). The message read: ‘Are you ready?’ There is a plaque on the wall of St Lawrence’s churchyard marking the exact spot.
In 1956, the GOWER PENINSULA was designated THE FIRST ‘AREA OF OUTSTANDING NATURAL BEAUTY’ IN BRITAIN.
In the little Norman church at RHOSSILI there is a plaque to the memory of EDGAR EVANS (1876–1912), the first of Captain Robert Scott’s men to perish on the return journey from the South Pole, in 1912. Evans was born in the next-door village of Middleton on Gower, and the plaque was placed in the church by his widow, Lois. He was the first Petty Officer to have a naval building named for him, the Edgar Evans Building on Whale Island, Portsmouth.
RHOOSE POINT, just west of Barry is THE SOUTHERNMOST POINT OF MAINLAND WALES. A sign there proclaims the fact.
MERTHYR MAWR, 3 miles (5 km) outside Bridgend, is an idyllic collection of ridiculously pretty, thatched, grey stone cottages, grouped around a wide green. A short walk away is the haunting, ivy-covered ruin of CANDLESTON CASTLE, a 14th-century fortified manor house that once stood at the centre of the lost village of Treganlaw, now smothered by the shifting sands of Merthyr Mawr, THE LARGEST DUNE SYSTEM IN EUROPE. Some of the dunes are over 200 ft (60 m) high, and one dune, known as the ‘Big Dipper’, is thought to be THE HIGHEST SAND DUNE IN EUROPE. Scenes from the 1962 David Lean film Lawrence of Arabia, starring Peter O’Toole, were filmed on the dunes at Merthyr Mawr.
Nottage Court
R.D. BLACKMORE (1825–1900), author of Lorna Doone, grew up at NOTTAGE COURT, a beautiful Jacobean house belonging to his Aunt Mary, where he was sent to live after his mother died when he was a baby. Nearby is the mysterious SKER HOUSE, one of Wales’s haunted places – Blackmore was inspired to write The Maid of Sker after hearing the true tale of a young woman imprisoned in the house, in a room with blocked-up windows. The Elizabethan house has recently been restored.
Sker House
WHITEFORD LIGHTHOUSE stands at the southern entrance of the channel to Llanelli, off the northern tip of the Gower Peninsula at Whiteford Burrows. Built in 1865, it is THE ONLY OFF-SHORE CAST-IRON LIGHTHOUSE IN BRITAIN.
The massive capstone covering the neolithic chambered tomb at TINKINSWOOD weighs 40 tons and is THE LARGEST CAPSTONE IN BRITAIN. Some 50 bodies were found inside the tomb when it was excavated in 1914.
Beautiful ABERDULAIS FALLS, near Neath, is one of the birthplaces of Welsh industry, a power source for over 400 years. In 1584, a copper-smelting business was set up here, followed by a tin-plate works. Aberdulais is one of the most picturesque industrial sites anywhere and has long been a favourite for painters. Today the falls are run by the National Trust, and have been harnessed to run a unique self-sufficient hydro-electric scheme. The water-wheel at Aberdulais is THE BIGGEST WATERWHEEL IN EUROPE BEING USED TO GENERATE ELECTRICITY.
During its short life, the THREE-WHEELED ELECTRIC C5 CAR designed by SIR CLIVE SINCLAIR was manufactured at the Hoover factory in MERTHYR TYDFIL.
There are only 16 examples of LEY’S WHITEBEAM, THE WORLD’S RAREST TREE, growing anywhere in the world – and they are all in the Taff valley near MERTHYR TYDFIL.
LLANTWIT MAJOR is a quite lovely old town centred on the great church of St Illtyd, described by John Wesley in 1777 as ‘the most beautiful parish church in Wales’. St Illtyd was a 5th-century monk who had been a soldier of fortune, and is thought by some to have been Sir Galahad from the Knights of the Round Table. He established a college here, on the site of an earlier school, founded in the 3rd century by Eurgain, a daughter of Caratacus, which was THE EARLIEST KNOWN SEAT OF LEARNING IN BRITAIN.
One of Wales’s greatest rock bands, THE STEREOPHONICS, started out in CWMAMAN, near Aberdare.
The derelict 13th-century parish church of LLANDEILO TALYBONT, near Pontardulais, famed for its wall paintings, is THE FIRST MEDIEVAL CHURCH IN BRITAIN TO BE DISMANTLED AND RE-ERECTED IN A MUSEUM, in this case the Museum of Welsh Life at St Fagan’s, near Cardiff.
