Rhondda History Page 2 (Rhondda Valleys)

Image: The Heading new

This Is The History Page Of The Rhondda..
You Will Find Both Old & New Stuff Here:
It's A History About The Rhondda In Words & Pictures
Please Read On And Enjoy Our History..

THE HISTORY OF THE RHONDDA

Yr Rhondda

Yr Rhondda, or The Good Trail,
has been famous for its hospitality, for hundreds of years.
A mysterious friar laid the foundation,
enshrining The Rhondda as a separate legal entity:
dedicating it to God.
As Wales lost the ability to control its own destiny,
so The Rhondda was forced to face a world
...which only knew the value of greed.
Yet The Rhondda, through coal, has reaffirmed its own vision:
that each individual is precious - and that we are all one.
The Rhondda's history (through this site and links with others),
CAN ONLY be written by its own people;
.. we warmly welcome YOUR contribution.

The story of the Rhondda valleys began some 6000 years ago
when immigrants inhabited them during the Mesolithic period.
These first residents built sites for themselves above the valleys
that glaciers had formed in the last ice age,
when what we now call UK was part of the European mainland.
Later, in the bronze age nomadic tribes built cairns
and standing stones on the hilltops and valleys.
During the iron age local inhabitants also lived on the mountains.

Up until the mid 19th century the Rhondda
was almost unknown to the rest of the country.
The whole area was sparsely populated
and forestry and the rearing of sheep and
cattle were the principle occupations.

However, from the mid 19th century onwards
it underwent radical and drastic changes
from a rural backwater to one of the most
productive coal mining areas in Great Britain.

The mining industry in the Rhondda began in 1812
with the first pit opening in Dinas and
over the next 150 years the mines were
the mainstay of the economy.
By 1913, 53 mines were in operation and
the Rhondda was home to 41,000 miners
producing a total of 9.5 million tons of coal in that year.

However, after the First World War
demand declined consistently
as coal was replaced by alternative
and more efficient fuels.
In South Wales as a whole 115 coal mines
closed between 1947 and 1966 and in 1985
only 60 pits remained open.
In the Rhondda the last pit closed in 1990.

Light and service industries have replaced coal
to some extent in the Rhondda but unemployment is high
and many people today commute out of the area for work.

TONYPANDY

Image: Pandy Inn Pub. TONYPANDY

Image: Tonypandy

This is a nice view Of TONYPANDY.
This photograph was taken in the late Eighties.
Now it's a pedestrian walk way.
Great! If you're a shopper..

Looking Down At The Rhondda Valleys

Image: Looking Down At The Rhonda

Looking down at The Rhondda valleys, you can see Penrhys on the right.
On the left you can see Penrhys Golf Club.
This scenic picture was taken on a nice clear day with bright sunshine.

Pontygwaith

Image: Pontygwaith

Ferndale

Image: Ferndale

Stanleytown

Image: Stanleytown

Trealaw

Image: Trealaw

Ton Pentre

Image: Ton Pentre

HOW RHONDDA SHAPED THE WORLD

The Rhondda, South Wales's quintessence of coal dust,
was a late developer and visitors from the last century
were still remarking on its beauty,
most famously lamented by Richard Llewellyn
in his novel How Green Was My Valley.
Two adjacent valleys, Rhondda Fawr (Great Rhondda)
running from Blaenrhondda to Pontypridd and the Rhondda Fach
(Little Rhondda) which rises above Maerdy
and joins the main valley at Porth, meet to form the Rhondda.
Only 170 years ago a traveller said of the area:
"Hereabouts, and for some miles to come,
there is a degree of luxuriance in the valley,
infinitely beyond what my entrance on this district
led me to expect. The contrast of meadows,
rich and verdent, with mountains the most wild
and romantic surrounding them on every side,
is in the highest degree picturesque."

This rural idyll was shattered in the 1860s
when steam coal started to be mined and a thin
black veil was drawn over the valley's history.
From Rhondda's sparsely populated wild and woolly origins,
one of the most important coal producing areas
in the world materialised.
At one time Rhondda supported 53 working
collieries packed into an area 16 miles long.
It became the most intensely mined area in the world
and was probably one of the most densely populated.
The scanty rural population of 951 in 1851
swelled to 169,000 by 1924, which meant approx. 20,000 people
lived and worked in a single built-up square mile.

Work was plentiful but conditions were atrocious
and pay was poor. Mine owners wallowed in wealth,
while the workers became ingrained with poverty.
Drainage and sanitation were primitive and mortality was rife.
Between 1868 and 1919 one miner was injured every other minute
and there was one fatality every six hours.
Choke damp and fire damp were the two great hazards;
unluckily for the workforce these and other obstacles
were largely conquered by trial and error.
There was often resistance to change and safety
measures were only taken in the wake of disaster.
Albion Colliery at Cilfynydd was the scene of a pit explosion
which killed 250 miners in 1894 and Senghennydd,
where 439 men died in 1913, is close to Albion
and just outside the present borough boundary.

In the village of Trehafod the undertaker's house
was much bigger than those of the miners.
Death was a thriving business, growing fat on
poor sanitation, overcrowding, high infant mortality
and large families as well as mining tragedies.
Few lived to be more than 50.
Until the outbreak of World War Two
death rates in the area continued to be above the average
for England and the rest of Wales whether or not
families were working in the mines.

Rhondda's coal was first exploited to fuel the British navy.
Known as "dry steam coal", it played a major
role in Britain's then expanding empire.
The Japanese fleet which defeated the Imperial Russian navy
in the Pacific in 1905 was fuelled by coal from Rhondda;
just one example of how it helped shape the World.