5 May 2025

Lost churches in the south Wales uplands

by | posted in: Archaeology, Heritage (General), Welsh History | 0

The hills above the mining valleys of south Wales are dotted with the remains of little medieval churches. (Technically they were chapels – chapels of ease, where the congregation still had to go to the parish church for baptisms, marriages and burials, or possibly parochial chapelries which could perform these rituals. But in the Welsh valleys the word ‘chapel’ always calls to mind the Nonconformist churches of the industrial era.) Manmoel, Capel Brithdir, Capel Gwladus, Coly Uchaf, Forest Chapel, Capel y Fan, Capel Baiden; further to the west, Capel Gyfylchi may have had a medieval predecessor (it was recorded as ‘an old chapel in ruins’ in 1763: John Morgan-Guy, the Diocese of Llandaff in 1763, South Wales Record Society, 1991, p. 44). There was a chapel at Resolven, in ruins by 1718 (Morgan-Guy, Diocese of Llandaff in 1763, p. 46) and William Rees marked a chapel called Llaneithrim on Mynydd Carnllechart, west of Pontardawe. (He never gave references, which can make retracing his work a bit tricky.)

Some of these little churches have evidence for nearby peasant housing. At Manmoel, the boundaries of the Cistercian grange go carefully around what must have been a settlement north of the Nant y Felin, and there are house platforms dotted aound Coly and Capel Gwladus on Cefn Gelli-gaer. Accrding to Nathaniel Jones, rector of Merthyr 1640-62, there was a hamlet of over 50 houses served by Capel y Fan; by his time, the chapel had been converted into a dwelling house and the inhabitants were unable to come to church. (His account is transcribed by Frank T. James in Y Cymmrodor vol. 35, 1925, online at https://journals.library.wales/view/1386446/1398546/168#?xywh=-168%2C464%2C3333%2C1801 .) There is no evidence now for any housing near the remains of the chapel.

Other lost churches seem completely deserted, though they must have had a congregation at some time. One of the most remote is Forest Chapel, at SO 08203 00565 on the ridge between the Taff and the Rhymney. All that is left of it is the foundations of its walls under the turf and a faint bank round a little enclosure to the east. (Details on Coflein at https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/15316/ )

The only evidence of housing is the very faint foundations of a rectangular building about 1½ km to the south, and a little to the west of Fforest Farm at ST 0864 9938. According to the Royal Commission inventory, this could be an early house but could also have been a farm building.

A steep minor road runs up to the ridge from Treharris, deteriorating into a track after Tir-lan Farm. Along the track, at about ST 09205 99611, is this

Virtually unphotographable, but there is stone under the turf. Could it be a cross-ridge dyke, one of those early medieval land boiundaries which appear on several of the ridges between the mining valleys. There is something marked as ‘field system’ on the OS 1:25,000 map but I can’t find anything on Coflein or the Royal Commission inventories.

We rarely know anything about the foundation and desertion of these little churches. Manmoel and Capel Gwladus both appear in Lifris’s late C11 life of St Cadoc so are presumably pre-Norman; Capel Gwladus also an early medieval inscribed stone (now in the parish church at Gelli-gaer). Brithdir had another simple early medieval inscribed stone built into its fabric (it is now in the church at Bargoed) and it was near a major early medieval stone, the Tegernacus stone (now in the National Museum), so that too could be early. Others were probably established to serve the needs of peasant farmers in the period of agricultural expansion in the C12 and C13 when the climate was rather better. Most would then have gone out of use when the climate deteriorated in the early C14. Manmoel and Capel Gwladus were both converted into houses. Manmoel is still a farm house, but Capel Gwladus is little more than stones under the turf. As we have seen, Capel y Fan was also converted into a dwelling house. Capel Brithdir must have been a parochial chapelry, as it has a graveyard, which was in use well into the C19. It was rebuilt on its medieval foundations but went out of use and was demolished in 1960. Baiden was also rebuilt at some point and was being used in 1763 but was ruinous again by 1781 (Morgan-Guy, Diocese of Llandaff in 1763 p. 39). Other former chapels of ease Blaengwrach, Crynant and Aberpergwm have also become parish churches in their own right. As with the lost farmsteads which dot the hills round Cardiff, it is hard to see why one chapel of ease should have fallen into ruins while another has become a parish church.

10 Aug 2024

Early mining on Cefn Carnau

by | posted in: Heritage (General), Welsh History | 0

Following on from my blog posts on deserted cottages and farmsteads above Cardiff, I have been sent some information about early coal mining on Cefn Carnau. In his History of Caerphilly, H. P. Richards says (without references, unfortunately) that coal was being mined on Cefn Carnau in 1307 and the mone was still in operation in 1542. He also referred to early mines in Rhydri and Machen Forest.

I would need to do some more work to track down the evidence for all this. Meanwhile, I have been told that there are conical tips on the ridge above Blaen Nofydd, one at ST 169 849 and one a little further down the Heol Hir. So Gwen and I set out with my sharp-eyed French cousin Amy to have a look.

Looking with early industry in mind, the lane up from Blaen-nofydd to the Heol Hir has plenty of what could have been fairly shallow pits and the upcast from them. These

are quite near the bottom of the lane. ST 169 849 is further up, just east of the junction with the Heol Hir. There are some possible tips

but nothing really definite. This

got us quite excited – at first sight it looked like a house platform but on closer inspection it was an outcrop.

And were these

further evidence of digging?

This was as near as we could get to something like a tip further down the Heol Hir

– we will have to go back when the leaves are off the trees and the undergrowth has died down a bit.

And where would the workers in these mines have lived? Should we be looking for more house platforms in the adjoining fields? Bwlch-y-llechfaen is right next to the upper tip, and Bwlch y Gelli is less than half a kilometer down the lane. A little further away are Ty Draw to the north (¾km) and a farm and cottage about the same distance down the Heol Hir to the south. If (and it’s a big if) these are on the site of medieval houses, and given that the mine would have been fairly small and not worked continuously, it’s possible that the men from these little farms worked in the mine when there was work to be had and that the women worked the land. This was the basis of much early industrial society. My own house originally had a garden almost big enough for a smallholding, with buildings for chickens and pigs. The men worked in the local mines and iron works and the women produced the food.

16 Oct 2023

More lost farmsteads: Craig yr Allt

by | posted in: Archaeology, Heritage (General), Welsh History | 1

Now that Gwen the cockapoo puppy is a little older (and a little more ready to come back when called), we are doing longer walks. Today, we went up Craig yr Allt, and I was reminded that I never did look for details of this

 

at about OS Grid Ref: ST 12516 84638. From the path just a heap of tumbled stone,

 

but up in the brambles there is a bit more of a wall.

 

And a little further up the slope, at about ST 12575 84628

 

a little more stonework.

They took some finding on the wonderful https://places.library.wales but they are there – it’s just tricky overlaying the 2nd edition OS and the tithe plan on the modern satellite image. Also the tithe plan shows the 2 buildings much closer together that they actually are.

In 1839, the date of the tithe plan for the huge parish of Eglwysilan, they were part of a farm called Tir Craig yr Allt. They may originally have been part of another smaller farm which had been absorbed into Tir Craig yr Allt. The lower of the two buildings isn’t named but is in a small field called Cae dan y ty, the field below the house. The upper building is in a field called Cae ysgubor, Barn field. T he main farmhouse of Tir Craig yr Allt (described as ‘Homestead’ on the tithe plan) was at about ST 13787 84873. This added to the confusion: between the tithe plan and the 1st edition OS map (surveyed 1875), the farmhouse had been rebuilt a little further down the valley of the Nant Brynau. This farm, now just called Craig yr Allt, is still there: it is a large farm and riding stables. Alas, the site of the ‘Homestead’ isn’t accessible: it’s in the woods between the drive to Craig yr Allt and the Nant Brynau, so we can’t check if anything remains of the old farmhouse.

In 1840, Tir Craig yr Allt was the property of Robert Henry Clive, part of what would become the Plymouth estate, and the tenant was Mary Williams. It was a substantial farm of nearly 130 acres, though just over 50 a. of that was rough mountain grazing.

A little further up the lane (I need to go back and check the grid reference) was this

 

(Gwen for scale) – presumably an old adit. Coal levels and quarries are marked along the lane on the 2nd edition OS, and both lead and iron were found in the area.

12 Feb 2023

Fforest Fach

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This is yet another of those ‘medieval forest boundaries I have walked past dozens of times without recognising them’ posts (see also https://www.heritagetortoise.co.uk/2022/11/forest-boundaries/, https://www.heritagetortoise.co.uk/2022/11/coed-rhiwr-ceiliog/, https://www.heritagetortoise.co.uk/2022/12/fforest-ganol/ ). Fforest Fach runs between the ridge of Rhiwbina Hill and the little valley of the Nant Cwmnofydd. The boundaries are the road up Rhiwbina Hill, the lane from the road down to the stream, and the lane back up towards Bwlch-y-cwm Cottage. But which came first, the lanes or the forest with its boundary banks?

The boundary of Fforest Ganol runs up to the road over Rhiwbina Hill at ST 14371 83141. There is a bank running north along the road which could be the eastern boundary of Fforest Ganol: the road at this point is slightly hollowed into the hillside but the bank is clear of ground level on the western side.

The boundary of Fforest Fach should run east from this point but it has been lost under the gardens of Forest Lodge and St Hilarion (on the site of Coedwig-du on the 2nd edition 6” OS map). It should run down to the lane along the Nant Cwmnofydd but there doesn’t seem to be a change in the banking along that lane at any point. Here it is near Seaview at about ST 14574 83125

and here further down at about ST 14606 83233

There is no obvious bank going north, but matching the modern OS map with the tithe plan it does look as though the boundary followed the line of the modern fence (just visible through the undergrowth at about ST 14604 83215)

then went along the lane until the turning to the footbridge and ford, where the line of the boundary follows the stream.

No evidence of a bank where the boundary turns NW away from the stream – but a very clear bank to the east of the lane leading back up towards Bwlch-y-cwm.

 

(How many times have I walked this lane, with a succession of dogs …)

Near the top of the slope, another track joins from the left. From the tithe plan and 2nd edition OS it looks as though the boundary bank goes right here for a little

then turns left at about ST 14580 83820 to go up the steep slope.

No evidence of a bank here, or at the top – the slope is probably too steep – but could this tree at the top be a stub?

There is a very slight boundary bank following the lane back to Bwlch-y-cwm, suggesting that the original cottage there just outside the boundary could even have been medieval.

I keep thinking that’s as far as I’m going to get with Rackham’s work but doubtless there will be more.

11 Feb 2023

The Afterlife of Stone Monuments

by | posted in: Archaeology, Church Tourism, Graveyards, Heritage (General) | 0

Some years ago now, Steve (my husband) did the MA in Celto-Roman Studies offered by the late lamented University of Wales, Newport. He got particularly interested in the stone monuments of early medieval Wales and wrote a short article on the ways that the stone of these early monuments was reused. I never managed to persuade him to publish it, but it turned up a few days ago when we were sorting out old hard drives and back-up folders. So here it is.

THE AFTERLIFE OF STONE MONUMENTS 2

31 Dec 2022

Maes Araul and the Little House

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Looking again at my photos of the ruined cottages in Coed Rhiw’r Ceiliog, I wondered whether they were originally platform houses, built on land dug into the hllside. That would have suggested an early date – but were they really? We got back there in a rare gap in the rain and splashed across the ‘improved grassland’ and the many streams in the woods.

This, the larger of the cottages

does look to have been dug into the bottom of the slope, but the house is roughly square. Rebuild on an earlier site? Possibly …

But the smaller of the cottages, which I thought at first was at right angles to the slope and this was the south gable wall

turned out to be a similarly square structure and the bit to the south was this

the traditional little house at the bottom of the garden. (In Welsh we actually call it the tŷ bach)

Back to the tithe plan – and again more confusion. The tithe map overlay at https://places.library.wales/browse/51.543/-3.279/17?page=1&alt=&alt=&leaflet-base-layers_70=on has an awkwardly-placed blot over where the second cottage ought to be, but there really doesn’t seem to be anything there. The larger cottage is described as ‘2 Cottages and Gardens’ but the two buildings are close together.

Curiouser and curiouser.

 

And another strange thing. My sharp-eyed French cousin spotted this

on one of the old broad-leaved trees below the first cottage. The number on the tag is 1681. We didn’t see any tags on other trees. Has someone been doing a bit of surveying of the old broad-leaved trees in the wood, or is this just something that someone found and randomly stuck on the tree?

18 Dec 2022

Garth Cottages

by | posted in: Archaeology, Heritage (General) | 0

I went up the Garth before the snow melted and walked back along the Pentyrch road. This

is marked on the 2nd edition OS as Mwndy, but on the tithe plan it’s Gockatt Isha, a house and just short of 8 acres of arable, pasture, meadow and garden, belonging to the Bute estate and tenanted by David John.

Steps up from the road

To be honest, the ruins look more substantial than you’d expect from a smallholding, and the area just to the north-east

is quite a substantial enclosure. The OS marks a separate building here.

Caerwen

just south of the road was a much bigger farm, over 125 a., but now a ruin.

And this

a little further along the road, must have been the Collier’s Arms. The Lan research group have done a lot of work on the deserted buildings along the road from Gwaelod-y-garth.

 

18 Dec 2022

Fforest Ganol

by | posted in: Archaeology, Heritage (General) | 0

Back to Oliver Rackham’s Ancient Woods of South-east Wales. This rather undistinguished hedge-bank up in the woods on the other side of the little valley from Castell Coch

turns out to be part of the forest boundary bank of Fforest Ganol. This is at about OS Grid Ref: ST 14187 83090. Th field boundary turns south here, but the forest boundary bank continues westward under the trees.

The bank is clearer and more substantial to the east

It virtually disappears once you reach the cleared field

but with the eye of faith you can still see it.

Further down towards the stream, these are the hornbeam stools that Rackham spotted

Hornbeams are unusual west of the Chilterns – Rackham says they were briefly popular as planters’ trees in the C19 but that the size of these stools suggests they are older.

 

 

4 Dec 2022

Maesaraul and Coedcae

by | posted in: Archaeology, Heritage (General) | 0

Back to Coed Rhiw’r Ceiliog to look for those ruins in the middle of the wood. On the tithe plan they are described as cottages and gardens, belonging to William Booker, Thomas and Elizabeth Matthews and William Gedrick and tenanted by Richard Blackmore and Co. (presumably Richard Blakemore, owner of the Melingruffydd tinplate company?). The first edition 6” OS map at https://maps.nls.uk/view/102342583 , surveyed 1872-5, does not give them a name but plans them out in some detail, with their gardens and a cleared patch to the south. The second edition OS 6” at https://places.library.wales/browse/51.54/-3.27/15?page=1&alt=&alt=&leaflet-base-layers_66=on calls them Maesaraul.

Both are described as cottages but the one to the east is more substantial

with what looks lilke an enclosed yard

 

and some hefty beech trees around it.

The one to the west is smaller.

They might at one time have been farmhouse and labourer’s cottage, but by 1840 I am guessing that they would have been occupied by coal miners or iron workers, employees or subtenants of the Blakemores. As well as the early bell pits, there is plenty of evidence for later coal mining in the wood – including at least one pit big enough to need fencing off.

Time to look at the census.

The biggest mine was of course the Lan mine, down at the bottom of the hill with a good interpretation board. This was the place of the great Lan colliery disaster in 1875. The children of Gwaelod school had added their contributions to a memorial to those who lost their lives.

The tithe map is if anything confusing rather than helpful. The cottages are listed but are surrounded by what are described as fields (one arable, one meadow, a couple of pasture and one of 52 acres described as being ‘wood & pasture) part of a farm called Coedcae, belonging to the same group of owners as the cottages. Coedcae seems to cover the full extent of what is now Coed Rhiw’r Ceiliog, but the only patch of land actually called Coed Rhiw’r Ceiliog (or actually Coed rhiw Cylog) is the wooded area west of Bethlehem Chapel, part of the Dynevor estate. On the first edition OS 6” the whole wooded area seems to be what is called Coed y Rhiw-Ceiliog. The woods on the tithe plan are patchy. On the first 6” OS they are mixed conifer and broadleaf, on the second edition OS 6” they are all broadleaf. On the 1964 revision they are still broadleaf and the name for the cottages has vanished. Later 1” and 1:25,000 maps also show it as broadleaf. This is misleading, as the conifers are old and decaying – possibly planted in the great push for self-sufficiency in wood after WWII?

There is plenty else of interest in and around the wood. Once you start looking for house sites, you see them everywhere – is this, for example

at about ST 11509 83359 some sort of structure, or just the upcast from a pit?

The Lan history group have been working on the housing north of the road – several cottages, and a pub, the Colliers’ Arms. There are the remains of houses below the road as well, along the track that leads to the woods. This one, at ST 11407 83558,

is quite substantial, with a separate little annex to the north

with its own chimney, and accessible only from outside. A wash house, maybe? The other, at ST 11415 83588

is completely inaccessible but seems from the OS map to have been roughly the same size. Neither is on the tithe map so they can’t have been farm houses.

Trying to get at the second house from below, I walked past this

 

 

just below the house, at ST 11421 83600 – another of the many adits.

This is outside the boundary of the ancient woodland, but ironically in the patch of wood that is called Coed rhiw Cylog on the tithe plan. Luckily, that is part of the Dynevor estate, whose estate papers presumably survive … somewhere …

27 Nov 2022

Coed Rhiw’r Ceiliog

by | posted in: Archaeology, Heritage (General) | 6

More discoveries in Oliver Rackham’s Ancient Woods of South-east Wales. Coed Rhiw’r Ceiliog is on the southern slope of the Garth mountain, just north of Cardiff. Looking from the Pentyrch road,

it is now a rather decayed conifer plantation, though with a few large beech trees

peeking over the edge. Rackham has however identified it as an ancient woodland, complete with boundary bank. There are more large beech trees

down the slope from the northern entrance. (There is a splendid detailed map in the book.) And yes, the bank is there – and along the northern edge it looks like a bank and ditch.

Yes, the ditch has turned into a stream in the recent rain. And yes, I did fall into the stream. But by this stage I was so excited by Rackham’s findings that I plodded on regardless, dripping mud and grateful that my phone is waterproof.

The bank going westward is quite clear, once you know what you are looking at

and here is the beech tree which Rackham noted at the north-west corner.

He describes it as a stub – a tree which has been cut off and allowed to regrow. A stub has been cut rather higher than a coppice but not as high as a pollard, and it’s typical of woodland boundary banks.

From here the bank turns south,

and what may once have been a ditch is now quite definitely a stream. There are a number of bell pits in the wood, early forms of coal mining. The Garth is near the southern edge of the South Wales coal field and the coal seams are fairly near the surface. Bell pits were one of the earliest forms of mining: you dug down to the coal then widened out the hole into a bell shape, got out as much coal as you could and (ideally) got out before the sides collapsed. They were an inefficient method of mining, and by the eighteenth century they had largely been replaced by drift mines and adits. The bell pits in Coed Rhiw’r Ceiliog could be medieval or early modern. This one

cuts into the boundary bank at OS ref ST 11125 83227 so is clearly later than the bank. Another a little further down

at about ST 11226 83077 would also have encroached on the bank.

There is a lot more to find out – back to the wonderful Places of Wales web site. The 1900 OS map marks buildings in the middle of the forest and gives the area the name Maesaraul, though the 1840 tithe plan says it’s part of a farm called coedcae (a place name about which Rackham has quite a bit to say). There was also a cottage down at the south-east corner, called Maes-gwyn on the OS map but on the tithe plan described as part of Coedcae.

Rackham was only concerned with the ancient woodland, though he does mention later features like mining and tramways when they affect things like woodland banks.

The bank turns north and runs up to the road at ST 11321 83507.

Early maps show settlement at this north-east corner of the wood, now ruined or lost. This

must have been a cottage, but it can now only be identified  by the shrubs which would once have been the garden hedge, lonicera nitida and privet.

There were once houses all along the road, a pub (the Collier’s Arms), and a bigger house (or possibly a farm) below the road – but it’s difficult to tie these up with the tithe plan. More work needed.