Bruce Baxter is researching his family history and has written to us enquiring about Station Records for Hirwaun …
My Great Grandfather Olive Hugh Thomas was born in Hirwaun on 10th January 1855 and his father was David Thomas Station Master. His Mother was Martha Lewis who may have been born in Merthyr Tydfil on 31 [...]...
Rhondda Cynon Taf Council confirmed today that demolition of Maerdy Workingmen’s Hall will begin soon.
Built in 1905, the grand old building was an iconic symbol of Rhondda’s wealth based on the coalmining industry.
The local Council plan to recycle as much of the remains of the building as possible.
Several local organisations have already expressed an interest in reusing the old stone from the venue as soon as it is razed to the ground.
Why not Share your Memories or Photos of the Hall ?
Click here for the Gallery of Photos of Maerdy Workingmen’s Hall...
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It's not often initiatives we launch as Ministers get to be the subject of the Radio Four Today programme's Thought for the Day, but thanks to the Rev Roy Jenkins our Valleys Homecoming Initiative in 2010 has done so.You can read Roy's words here, or listen here.You are subscribed to an RSS Feed from Leighton Andrews. You can send your views direct to Leighton via...
This is a decidedly difficult sculpture. An imposing steel rocket-like structure on the edge of Merthyr town.
When the late Charles Sansbury created this massive installation way back in 1975, little did he realise how unloved his gangly child would become.
Logic and reason suggest that it is difficult not to notice this work at a height of approximately 20 feet. On the other hand most people don’t notice it.
The sculpture was installed at the edge of Merthyr main car park, in front of Merthyr College, and at the entrance of the main footbridge leading into St Tydfil’s shopping centre.
Although it was guaranteed a daily audience of thousands of passers-by, few noticed when it was recently moved to the Caegarw roundabout as part of a town landscaping project.
And the colour...
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A new book has been launched to celebrate the history of a much-loved chapel in the Cynon Valley.
Elfed Davies from Gadlys, Aberdare, who is a member of the Hirwaun Historical Society organized the launch jointly with the Rhondda Cynon Taf Council’s Libraries and Museum Service.
The launch of The History of Bethel Chapel took place at [...]...
Psst, do you want to know a secret?It’s the story of a heroic Welshman, although it doesn’t start off very courageously.I mean, our heroes are rarely “mean-spirited” and “bony-faced”.They don’t normally have ill-shaped ears, or make a spectacle of themselves by only putting in their false teeth to eat.What manner of hero is this, I hear you ask?Well, his name was Arthur George Owens and he was a very strange hero.Indeed, it might be asked whether he was a hero at all.Owens was a shifty character, but that was no drawback in his chosen profession.He started out as an electrical engineer, representing his firm in Europe during the 1930s.There, he picked up information which he figured, as Hitler grew more powerful, might be handy to the British government.After approaching MI6...
There can be few better outdoor venues than the amphitheatre on Penrhys looking down into the Rhondda Fawr.It was the setting for the concert on Saturday to mark the fortieth anniversary of the Penrhys estate - and the 470th anniversary of the destruction of the shrine of Penrhys at the command of Henry VIII in 1538. You can find a clip of the concert on Rhondda TV .You are subscribed to an RSS Feed from Leighton Andrews. You can send your views direct to Leighton via...
The HLF has been funding a project on the history of the Rhondda. Some interesting old photos here.You are subscribed to an RSS Feed from Leighton Andrews. You can send your views direct to Leighton via...
I was pleased to welcome members of the Maerdy Archive Group to the Assembly - not for the first time - a couple of weeks ago, for the launch of the Community Archives Wales online records project. You can find the Maerdy Archive Group material here.The project has been supported by Communities@One, the Assembly's digital inclusion project, which is funded from my Ministerial budgets in the Assembly and from Objective One monies, as well as by the Heritage department in the Assembly.CAW is a 15-month pilot project to enable eleven groups within Communities First areas throughout Wales to create their own digital archives and share them on the CAW website. The project employs 4 members of staff. It started in January 2007 and the current phase will end in September 2008. Digital community...
I was ten getting on for eleven in 1968 and the big event for me in May of that year was Cardiff City playing SV Hamburg in the European Cup-Winners Cup semi-final. So it's good to read some sober and honest analysis of that year from Fred Halliday rather than the over-rated nostalgia on offer from many of the superannuated ultras.You are subscribed to an RSS Feed from Leighton Andrews. You can send your views direct to Leighton via...
205 years ago Hirwaun Iron Works was bought by a new partnership of entrepreneurs. One of the partners was Francis William Bowzer
Stuart Wilson, the great great great grandson of that man, wrote to Hirwaun Online this week and contributed an excerpt from a biography he has prepared on his famous ‘great great great grandfather’.
It’s [...]...
The next meeting of Hirwaun Historical Society will take place at the Catholic Hall, March 17th at 7pm.
Lecturer Mr Huw Williams will give a talk on tracing your family......
A very well made interactive timeline of British history from the......
Aberdare Blog started as an experiment in communicating views of Aberdare and views from Aberdare. It remains an experiment in communication open to participation. Jane from Mountain Ash blogged the lead story on the Mountain Ash Opencast plans this week. Why not blog your own story from Aberdare today ?
Here is a list of the Top 100 tags used to describe posts on Aberdare Blog… if we haven’t blogged on a subject close to your heart, you can fix that yourself. If you prefer to blog a story with photos or video, that’ll do nicely thank you, send them today.
abercynon aberdare Aberdare Town aberdare_park Ann Clwyd Baptists bbc bbc_wales Books Caerphilly capitalism cardiff Ceredigion Chapels charity christine_chapman christmas christmas_2005 Church coal comedy...
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Is this the ghost of Henry VIII? It was captured by Anne Lambert on her mobile phone whilst staying at Samlesbury Hall - a 14th Century Tudor hall.......
The Story of Tower Colliery reaches far beyond the village of Hirwaun and beyond the borders of Wales. Many people have family connections and memories of Tower Colliery
My uncle Danny Jones died as a result of the 1962 Tower Colliery accident and some of my other uncles worked at Tower Colliery, writes June Withers.
I [...]...
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At Prime Minister’s Question Time last week, Ann Clwyd the MP for Aberdare and Cynon Valley, invited Gordon Brown to congratulate the miners of Tower Colliery on their successful management of a coalmine … “despite the efforts of the Conservatives to shut them down” (Source: Hansard via TheyWorkForYou).
Prime Minister Brown replied in kind … “I want to thank them for their efforts, proving that working people can get together and make a success of a project that other parties said would never work”.
The lack of leadership and statesmanship in the Labour Party in its present configuration remind one of Nye Bevan’s words given in speech to the Labour Party conference on October 4, 1957. Bevan warned of the perils of sending a “British...
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Many people have been touched by the story of Tower Colliery’s closure.
Chris Drew of Farnham in Surrey wrote to Hirwaun Online this week with a poetic eulogy below.
“I have written a short story about Towers closure,” writes Mr Drew.
“My family has had a long association with the mine, with my grandfather and uncle having been [...]...
Amidst the frenetic flurry of stories on Tower Colliery this week, one story caught our eye as an insightful breathe of fresh air …
John Redwood commented in his blog this week on the closure of Tower Colliery. He was Conservative Secretary of State for Wales at the time of the pit closure and subsequent buy-out. Without his enthusiasm for the project, it is doubtful whether the miners would ever have become owners of their own pits.
Redwood blogs thus :
When the miners arrived in my office, I think they were surprised by my enthusiasm for their cause, and by my explanation that their task was not to persuade me, but to work with me on our joint case to the Energy department and Coal Board to give them the opportunity to run the mine. As it meant being allowed to prove the Coal...
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There is a wonderful set of photos on Flickr entitled The Day Tower Colliery Closed by local Welsh photographer......
Secretary of State for Wales Peter Hain MP paid Tower Colliery a visit on Thursday, a week before it officially closes.
Mr Hain paid tribute to the team at Tower Colliery near Hirwaun and congratulated them “on their tremendous success and inspiring journey, demonstrating how a self-managed coal mine can work.”
Tower Colliery officially closes on Friday [...]...
What would the late and great Phil Weekes have to say about the closure of Tower Colliery this week ?
In 1974 at a Conference held during the Year of the Valleys, Philip Weekes described himself thus :
I have all the contrasts, the contradictions, the cussedness, the emotions that you will find in the typical valleys miner, which is what I claim to be. My devotion to the Valleys has no logic that I can discover; it seems to be rooted in emotion. An emotion that made me demand that I be removed from an exciting job as Director-General of Mining in London - to run the largest, geologically-toughest, most unprofitable coalfield in Britain, and probably, Western Europe.
Weekes was a genius communicator but even he would now find it difficult to articulate his disappointment at the demise...
From a podcast episode called Philosophy and Religion in Classical Greece I heard Dr Isabelle Pafford read the 7th Century BCE elegaic poet, Mimnermus. For a fragment two and a half millenia old it was suprisingly accessible.
We are as leaves in jeweled springtime growing,
Open to the sunlight's quickening rays.
So joy, we, in our span of youth, unknowing
if God shall bring us good or evil days
Two Fates beside you stand. The one has sorrow,
Dull Age's fruit; that other gives the boon
of Death. For Youth's fair flower has no tomorrow
And lives but as a sunlit afternoon
Apparently, his poems were set by himself to flute music.
The whole podcast series, History 4A The Ancient Mediterranean World on the webcast/courses pages......
Photos of Neath Abbey are now available in the Gallery.
Neath was a Cistercian Abbey founded in 1129. Dissolved in 1539.
According to Rod Cooper in his book Abbeys and Priories of Wales (Christopher Davies, Llandybie, 1992) pg. 69-71 : “Neath deserves particular attention because there is some evidence that it was the most noteworthy ecclesiastical building in Wales in terms of architecture. Its origins date from the first Norman invasion of South Wales and in the eyes of the Welsh the foundation was another facet of that invasion.”
“Today the ruins present some of the most complete remains of a Cistercian abbey to be found in Wales. Much, however, is badly......
At the Bridgend Eisteddfod in August 1998, Ron Davies was made a member of the Gorsedd of Bards in a special ceremony. He was Secretary of State for Wales at the time. It was rare praise for a politician and it came in recognition of his work steering through the devolution plans. In September 1997, the Referendum was won by only a whisker (around 6,000 votes). Without Davies’ contribution convincing the conservative British Nationalists within the Labour Party the Referendum result would have been a “no”.
Ron Davies had reason to feel confident at that Eisteddfod. He was truly the ‘architect of devolution’. Thus during the week he made a very confident appearance at a meeting organised by Cymdeithas yr Iaith (Welsh Language Society) to discuss the...
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A little over two hundred years ago saw the first steam locomotive haul a load on rails. Cornish Engineer Richard Trevithick’s steam locomotive ran with five wagons for five miles along the rail tramroad, from Penydarren to Navigation, Abercynon, with 70 men and 10 tons of iron on board. It was a historic journey.
What were the thoughts of the people who witnessed this noisy iron monster ?
Did they feel in awe of this spectacte and terrified by the sight ?
The Cambrian Newspaper commented on Trevithick’s terrific invention thus : “It is not doubted but that the number of horses in the kingdom will be very considerably reduced, and the machine, in the hands of the present proprietors, will be made use of in a thousand instances never yet thought of for an......
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The face of King Tut was unveiled in public for the first time today - 85 years after the 3,000-year-old boy pharaoh's golden-enshrined tomb and mummy were discovered in Luxor's Valley of the Kings.
Archeologists removed the mummy from his stone sarcophagus in his underground tomb, momentarily pulling aside a white linen covering to reveal a shriveled leathery black face and body. The mummy of the 19-year-old pharaoh was placed in a climate-controlled glass box in the tomb, with only the face and feet showing under the linen covering.
Tourists will be able to view the mummy from tomorrow.......
This is not a sight you see on the River Thames.
The 25ft Egyptian god Anubis - the jackal-headed God of the Dead - was transported along the Thames and through Tower Bridge on the back of a cargo ship.
The statue will be positioned in Trafalgar Square and marks the forthcoming opening of Tutankhamun And The Golden Age Of The Pharaohs at the O2 Bubble, the first exhibition to be held at the venue. Link...
Celebrating the centenary of the composition of the hymn tune Cwm Rhondda, Rhondda Cynon Taf Libraries and Museums service has produced a new CD entitled “John Hughes: Composer of Cwm Rhondda” to educate children on the legacy of this piece of music.
This world-famous hymn tune was first performed at a Cymanfa Ganu in Capel Rhondda, Hopkinstown on November 1st 1907 and since then surely no other hymn tune has enjoyed such international appeal and worldwide admiration.
Today it has become renowned as an anthem of sporting arenas, congregational singing, male voice choir concerts and above all as the very epitome of all that is passionate, rousing and inspiring about the proud cultural heritage of Wales.
The CD is designed for use by primary school children and contains both a...
Who Do You Think You Are?
Have you ever wondered what your great grandfather did for a living, or where he came from?
Answers to these and many more questions can be found next month when Rhondda Heritage Park hosts a Family History day.
On Saturday 13th October members of The Glamorgan Family History Society will be at the Park offering help and advice to anyone interested in Genealogy or tracing their Family History.
The Association of the Friends of Rhondda Heritage Park will also be available with information relating to the South Wales Coalfields and mining records.
Other displays throughout the weekend include research with microfiche, books, prints of old towns and villages plus lots more.
Nicola Newhams, Marketing Officer at Rhondda Heritage Park said: “For anyone interested in...
