MAWDDACH TRAIL

 

Barmouth Viaduct - Mawddach Trail

It has been a long time intention to cycle on the path next to the railway line over the Barmouth viaduct - the Mawddach Trail. So when the ‘only essential travel’ restriction was removed as the pandemic abated, an extended trip up the A470 becomes possible. On this journey once, you put the town of Brecon behind you, the road that is billed as a principal ‘thoroughfare’ through Wales, linking Cardiff Castle to Llandudno promenade, is basically a one laned twisty path that limits any speedy progress - particularly if you get caught behind a tractor. Our journey to Dolgellau feels long and tiring in hot weather but the hotel we have booked is more than adequate to meet our wandering needs.

The Mawddach Trail follows the route of an old railway line and is a short section of National Cycle Network Route 8 which in Welsh is known as Lôn Las Cymru. Dolgellau was originally the terminus of a Cambrian Railways branch line from Barmouth Junction where it linked with the route north toward Porthmadoc and south to Aberystwyth on the ‘Aberystwith (sic) and Welsh Coast Railway’. When this amalgamated into the Great Western Railway the line was extended from Dolgellau to Bala and Ruabon providing a route to London and Liverpool. The Dollgellau – Barmouth line was opened in 1865 and services ceased a century latter as a result of Dr. Beeching’s intervention.

As we had not brought our own bikes we would have to rent and so our wandering begins in a cycle shop in Dolgellau. Our hire bikes look more that adequate except, as we might have anticipated, they have no gel saddles which provide a comfort that we have grown used to. Leaving Dolgellau the route at first does not follow the old railway line as we ride along the south of the river, past the football ground. Following the path we come to a footbridge over the river and the sign tells us that it is the route to Barmouth. Oh dear! I forgot to consult the map before we came out and in my mind our route is all along the south of the river. I think we should ignore this bridge and sign and so we cycle on, but then in a manner of yards we come to a road. My memory tells me that we should not be on a road. We try to turn around but the path is now partially blocked by a large woman and her son who have followed us on their bikes. “Is this the way to Barmouth?” I express my uncertainty and as I do so, a man and woman on bikes that look as if they were picked up off a scrap heap ride up. “Barmouth?” he asks. Again I express my uncertainty, telling him I don’t have a map and I thought all the path was south of the river. The large woman and her son look on bemused. I wonder what sort of meeting is evolving with six people of various shapes and sizes on various bikes all standing still on a narrow path pointing in different directions. The scrap bike man reaches into his back pocket and brings out a large new mobile phone, the appearance and obvious technology rather belying the quality of his present mode of transport. A few quick presses on the screen and “Yes, we go over that bridge, follow the path, go onto and over the road and then we cross the river again straight away.” Off go the scrap bikes, (with a distinctive squeak), the large lady and her son turn around and we dutifully follow. “Not well sign-posted that.” I proclaim. “You should have brought a map.” I am told.

Now following the old railway line we travel straight for about a mile and come to Penmaenpool which was a station on the line. I had always thought the name was an anglisation of ‘Penmaenpwll’ but I was wrong because the Welsh name is Llynpenmaen. Llyn indicating a lake with the lake or English pool in fact being a broad slow bend in the river. 

Penmaenpool

The original station position is now the car park and toilet but the signal box is still standing with a signal on duty ready and willing for the trains that no longer come on a track long since dismantled. The buildings, including the pub, stand along where the track would have run and we take our first coffee break to watch cars noisily cross the private wooden toll bridge that spans the river here. The bridge was built in 1878 to replace a ferry which left from the wharf in front of us and over time the station and its railway undoubtedly replaced the river traffic. 

Penmaenpool Bridge

As we sit two men approach the wharf, take their clothes off revealing swimming trunks. They fold their clothes neatly and then walk over the toll bridge without paying – pedestrians are free. On the other side of the river they slowly walk into the water and then swim across the 50 yards of the ‘pool’ to where they left their clothes. As they dry themselves I ask,

“Was it cold?”

“No, lovely once you got in”

“Much of a current?”

“No , it very gentle there.” He thinks for a moment. “In fact I think I’ll go again.” and off he toddles leaving his friend who shakes his head to decline a second swim. With the calmness of the scene it is difficult to imagine how in 1966 a pleasure boat hit the bridge resulting in fifteen people drowning.  

Mawddach Estuary and Barmouth Bridge

We continue on our way and soon in the distance along the estuary we can see our destination, Barmouth Bridge. We are making good progress now as the path being typical of ex-railway lines is relatively straight and has no inclines. At Abergwynant we cross the bridge over the Gwynan, a tributary that rises on Cader Idris to the south. Black cattle are near the water feasting on the rich alluvial grass but they might not have been able to do this as there was a planning application in the 1970s to sift through the alluvial deposits of the estuary to extract the particles of gold washed out by the 19^th century mine workings. Gold was first discovered in the Mawddach valley in 1834 and at one time there were 24 gold mines in the area. A veritable gold rush that soon petered out with about 4 tonnes being extracted in total. Thankfully the industrialisation of the estuarine land was refused planning permission and cows have continued to enjoy their grazing rights.  As we cycle past I wonder what 4 tonnes of gold looks like.

Soon we can see old rotting wooden stakes on the bank which mark the remains of a jetty at Garth-isaf.

Garth-isaf

We are cycling closer to our end point and the trail turns inland around the Fegla Fach headland. This promontory is formed of the rocks of the ‘Ffestiniog Beds’ which are thick hard shales and grits that resisted glacial erosion during the last ice age and hence juts out into the estuary proclaiming its geological durability. The rocks were laid down some 500 million years ago when what is now Wales was much warmer as it lay south of the equator. It was these rocks that bore the gold veins created by mineralising fluids during periods of intense volcanic activity.

We cross a bridge over the Afon Arthog and then negotiate some gates to cross a road. Where the path begins on the other side of the road was Arthog station of which there are now no visible remains. The station like others on the line was closed to passengers on 18 January 1965.There must have been a small siding because a camping coach was placed here during the 50’s and 60’s. These coaches were retired passenger carriages converted to provide holiday accommodation. It must have been like being in a different version of an early caravan. Each coach had two bedrooms sleeping between 6 and 8 people. There was a kitchen, but all plumbing and electricity had been removed so there were no toilets as campers were expected to use the station facilities for their water and toileting needs.  Such small stations don’t have toilets these days!

Barmouth Junction
platform

A short distance after Arthog, the path reaches what was originally Barmouth Junction station. Here our east – west route along the line from Dolgellau met the still functioning line coming from Aberystwyth and travelling north. The two lines converged just outside the station towards Barmouth and the central platforms formed a large triangular shape as the lines separated. There is a current operating station, Morfa Mawddach, which due to the original configuration of lines at first seems to be a distance from the cycle path. A toilet now sits on the site of what would have been the most easterly edge of the old station and the beginnings of the original triangular platform can be made out.
Most of the central area has been levelled and is converted into a car park, so the large area of a busy Barmouth Junction station has morphed into the basic Morfa Mawddach, single platformed and unmanned.

The track now turns north and runs alongside the railway line. Soon we are riding on sand which has blown over from the nearby dunes. For a few hundred yards it is hard going, and then we are on the bridge which for cyclists and walkers is made of wooden planks; planks that have long since lost any close abutment that might have existed. A bumpy ride. 

Barmouth Bridge

As we look at the expanse of the estuary we see a considerable amount of constructing equipment ready to upgrade the bridge. On the Barmouth side we can see up the estuary and towards the hills in the distance showing off the early autumn colours. But on the side we are leaving there is low cloud and a greyness which means that unfortunately we are afforded no views of Cader Idris.  Looking up the valley we can make out its glacial shape left from when the ice flowed into Cardigan Bay.  Much glacial debris formed a large tidal lagoon which is now left as mud flats and then the sea threw up a shingle beach narrowing the mouth of the estuary on the Fairbourne side. 

We ride onto the rusting iron swing bridge and bump along next to its double arched structure. The bridge was constructed in such a way that it could swing through 90º to allow the masted river traffic to pass. This too will be refurbished and will retain its original shape but it will be rigid, non-moving, as there is no river traffic to warrant its mobile necessity. We pass through the redundant toll booth where small fees were collected from those who walked across the bridge. There are no fees now but with the title ‘Troll Booth’ visitors are encourage to donate coins for local charities.

Barmouth

In Barmouth, over sandwich lunch, we notice a preponderance of Brummie accents with several people wearing Baggies and Villa football shirts. We wonder about an ice cream and notice the large lady and her son, bikes propped up against a lamppost, licking enormous cones. We decide against it. Time to return and back the same way. 

Barmouth Bridge and Viaduct

After we bumpily cross the viaduct again, we pass Morfa Mawddach station and hear a recorded announcement to a deserted station.  “The next train is the 1:45 calling at Barmouth, Llanaber, Talybont ......”

On a section close to the estuary’s mud I wonder out loud, “Shall we find somewhere to pan for gold? You never know, we could get lucky.” “No it’s going to rain.”   So we press on, but the rain doesn’t come until we reach Penmaenpool. The lack of gel saddles is having a considerable effect by now and our numbing rears are pleased to arrive in Dolgellau. With bikes safely returned we find a very welcome tea and cake at Parliament House in Bridge St and we pull out our bucket list to cross something off. But panning for gold is still remains!

Autumn Walk
to the usual rhythms 
of water and weather

LLANDOVERY AND STATUES

Even though I had only visited Llandovery once before, I feel I have a long-standing affinity with the place which goes back to my A-level study of geology. Throughout the world, the first three epochs of datable geological time are named by way of links with Wales, the Cambrian , derives from the Latin name for Wales, Cambria  and the Ordovician  and Silurian  named after the Celtic Welsh tribes the Ordovices and Siluries. Hence students of geology naturally have a familiarity with the classic sites where these geological systems were initially described in Wales and which have a global importance. The third system, the Silurian, is divided into three periods with the first known as the Llandoverian which was studied by Sir Roderick Murchison in 1831. He was looking at rocks which are 444 milion years old at their base and 434 million years at their top and he first described these strata in the Llandovery area, hence the naming. So, due to this connection from my adolescent scholarly years, this small Welsh market town is ingrained in my memory.

Despite this association, today’s wandering is not to look at some rocks and pay homage to Murchison but to consider the town’s war memorial. This journey is inspired by another connection which is between Llandovery’s memorial and that which is close to my home in Whitchurch, Cardiff. The car journey in bright sunlight takes me directly north and then after cresting at Storey Arms north westwards towards Sennybridge and eventually to Llandovery. Once over the Beacons high point, agricultural traffic increases with large lorries carrying livestock to markets or abattoirs and tractors pulling various types of farm machinery. This slows me down pleasantly as I travel toward my destination.

Arriving in the middle of Llandovery the first statue I see is not the war memorial, for overlooking the car park and in front of the ruined castle is a tall imposing figure made of shiny stainless steel. It is of a helmeted warrior, enclosed in a great cloak, holding a spear with a long sheathed sword on the left. 

Llywelyn ap Gruffydd Fychan (c. 1341–1401) Llandovery

As I approach it I see that there is ‘nobody’ in the garb. It is empty. No head, no face, no body, just the shell of clothing, tall, commanding and defiant. Standing next to it the emptiness presents as a costume, an outfit from a Star Wars movie, where science fiction is mixed with medieval myths. The statue commemorates Llywelyn ap Gruffydd Fychan (c. 1341–1401), a local squire and a supporter of Owain Glyndwr, the self proclaimed Prince of Wales who rebelled against English rule demanding independence for Wales from the King in England, Henry IV.  During this Welsh Revolt, Henry was chasing the Welsh across Mid Wales, and Owain, with resources always a problem, needed time to put an army together in order to confront the King on more equal terms. Llewelyn in support of his prince tricked the King into following him, thus taking the pressure off Owain and allowing him the opportunity to rebuild his forces. Unfortunately, Llewelyn was captured, hung, drawn and quartered in the town square of Llandovery on October 9, 1401. Bits of his body were then displayed around the Principality to discourage others from opposing the English. To the Welsh of the time Llywelyn ap Gruffydd Fychan was a martyr. The importance of the statue is not in its striking appearance but that it commemorates war, tragedy, loyalty and unnecessary death not on some foreign field but on Welsh soil for Welsh reasons.

But this is not the statue I have come to see for although this is a memorial to the fallen in a war it is not the town’s War Memorial. This is located around the corner from the car park on the road where there is a kink in the A40 and it stands on a triangular piece of land with the base of the triangle in the front of the Castle Garage, a place where you can buy second-hand cars. Walking through the stock of cars in front of the sale room it seems strange looking at an effigy identical to that near my home, for this is the connection as the memorial near my home and this one in Mid Wales are identical. 

Llandovery War Memorial

Llandovery or Whitchurch?

Whichurch or Llandovery?

The soldier stands in the same way with the same clothes and has a similar patination. Not only is the figure the same, but the plinth on which it stands and the steps leading up to the plinth are also of the same size and modelled in the same way. The iron chain link fence around the Memorial also bears a similarity.  The dedications on both memorials carry matching layouts, fonts, letter sizes and gildings and proclaim in identical manner the dates of the First World War as being 1914-1919. Of course the most commonly accepted end of the First World War, 11th November 1918, identifies when the armistice was declared. However, the 1919 date refers to the 28th June of that year, when the Treaty of Versailles was signed, thereby formally ending the state of war between the Allied Powers and Germany. 

With all this similarity there is naturally an important difference between the Llandovery and Whitchurch memorials specifically the names carved on the plinth. Different men from different locations but united in their service and sacrifice.  The names maybe different and but the personal histories and family tragedies and grief implicitly declared in the stone will have followed all too familiar paths. As I contemplate the lives and deaths of the individuals I notice another difference in that there is a large crack developing in the plinth and together with its fading letterings of those who died in the Second World War, it remind me of the nature of impermanence, even of granite as well as the slow decline of personal memory. Perhaps this is the way the Whitchurch memorial will also weather with all those private sorrows and anguishes diminishing in a like fashion.

So how it that war memorials from a rural market town and a city suburb are identical? Clearly both are castings of the same figure and this figure can be found to be one of four placed around an obelisk which forms the war memorial of the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) outside Euston Station in London. The four figures represent the Army, the Infantry, the Navy and the Air Force. It is the Army figure that is found in Whitchurch and Llandovery and as the others it was sculpted by Ambrose Neale, a modeller who worked for the stone masons R.L. Boulton & Sons of Cheltenham the contractor for the Euston war memorial. 

LNER War Memorial Euston Station London

Additionally there is a link to Wales with the LNWR memorial for the architect was Reginald Wynn Owen, a native of Beaumaris, Anglesey, who worked for the railway. Certainly the statue from Euston station must have been cast several times from the same mould and undoubtedly it must have been cheaper for communities to buy a memorial that had in some way already been prepared. The memorial in Llandovery was reputed to have cost £900 when it was erected, so presumably the powers that be in Whitchurch also got the same deal and most probably from Boultons of Cheltenham. I wonder whether there was a catalogue for such things at the time and how many other towns and villages in the country have memorials which are copies or replicas of others – the job lot of remembrance.

A strange feeling of being disappointed arises within me. It feels seems as if the individuality of each town’s honouring and remembrance have in a way been diminished by the fact that the memorial is a copy and the same as somewhere else. It like carefully selecting a set of clothes for an event to state who you are and when you arrive finding someone else wearing exactly the same outfit. 

I leave with a sadness about what all war memorials represents and some perplexity about the copying, then walking down the road with my camera in hand, a coat and a hat reminiscent of the Llewelyn statue but now much shorter and above a pair of Wellington boots sharply says to me, “You're not going to take my photograph are you?”

Taken aback and not expecting another empty clothing shell I look closer under the wooly helmet and see an elderly woman peering at me. No empty warrior here, but she seems just as fierce. I approach her gingerly, wondering if I offended her by not seeking some disgruntling permission to hold a camera in public and uncertain about the face and the faceless. 

“No. No. I’ve taken a photograph of the war memorial.”

“Well there we are then,” she says grumpily and seemingly floats off down the road possibly harbouring disillusionment about my mission.

Having been brought out of my reflections of memory, individual and community, similarity and diversity I begin to think about seeking out refreshment before the drive home.

GILFACH GOCH, GARDEN VILLAGES AND ARCHITECTS

It is strange the things that you hold in your memory. Many years ago, when a university student, I had a Christmas job working for the post in the sorting office. Parcels would arrive from all over the country and my job involved placing these parcels into bags for the appropriate delivery area. Obviously, Maesteg went into ‘Maesteg’ and Merthyr went into ‘Merthyr’. What I remember was asking someone “Where does Gilfach Goch go?” “Gilfach Goch – ‘Porth’; remember it by the rhyme.” While I was wondering about the assonance of the two words he says, “Really it should be Gilfach Goch Garden Village.” Somehow the idea of a garden village in the valleys always intrigued me and so all these years later an occasional memory pops up and insists on a wander up that way.

Garden villages arose out of The Garden City movement which developed from the French Utopian Socialist Charles Fourier’s ideas of 1808. He promoted the notion of an ideal community with homes, farms and factories all laid out in a way to offer everyone the opportunity to engage in open spaces and cooperate in industry and leisure. The ideas were taken up by Ebenezer Howard in Britain in 1898 when he called the garden city, “the peaceful path to reform”. This approach was clearly in opposition to Britain's crowded conurbations and the piecemeal development that was occurred around large scale industrial activity.

Garden City and its surrounding area

 

Garden City - a section of roads

The ideas were taken up by Arts and Crafts architects in such places as Port Sunlight and Bournville, where they were sponsored by the employers of the workers who made the soap and the chocolate. In looking at these houses it is easy to see a middle-class intelligentsia conception of working-class housing. The layout was of low-density buildings with the backs of the houses forming an internal quadrangle. There were wide streets, central ‘village greens’, shopping parades and community buildings for schools and halls. Such designs were seen in England in Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City, with the smaller Welsh example being the garden village of Rhiwbina, designed by the architects Mottram and Unwin. The ideas of the movement influenced town planning for a considerable period of time.

So to Gilfach Goch to see what kind of garden village is there. The route to follow is west along the M4 leaving to go north toward Llantrisant. Now the road runs along the River Ely then near Tonyrefail turn to the west into the Ogwr Valley.  In the distant geological past, the Ely river would have continued northward with the Rhondda Fach and Fawr as its headwaters. But the Taff worked back and claimed the waters of the Rhondda Valleys to take them to Cardiff. The Ogwr Fach which flows through Gilfach Goch would also have joined the Ely but at some point it too changed its mind about its destination and turned southwest to join the waters that find the sea at Ogmore.

I pass a sign telling me that I am in Gilfach Goch which is in the borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf. Porth does not appear anywhere so perhaps the post office have now changed their delivery routes. I turned up the valley with no hint or signage of a garden village and certainly no arts and crafts looking houses or buildings. I now pass a sign telling me that I’m entering Evanstown in Bridgend County Borough. There is only really one road in and out of this valley and the few terraced streets of Evanstown appear just on the one side. By slavishly keeping to the line of the river, the vagaries of local boundary construction have neglected both the river’s prior fluvial affiliation and as well as the social 

Evanstown  - from Gilfach Goch

geographical necessities of Evanstown and placed it not in its natural community of the Ogwr Fach cul de sac valley but instead it has been commandeered by the local authority over the hills and sits as some kind of Bridgend enclave with different offices for pensioners to get their bus passes, different days and lorries for rubbish collection and sometimes slightly different school holidays. 

I look at the Evanstown Community Centre, formerly Bethania Independent Chapel built in 1846 reconstructed in 1925, and now beneath its pediment its own unusual relief of children at play.  Very colourful and different from the chapel days.

Evanstown Community Centre

Evanstown Community Centre Relief

A Peter’s Pie van-man chats to me about the building and importantly he tells me where I can get a cup of coffee later. I carry on along the west side of the valley presumably leaving Bridgend at some point and re-entering RCT but except by the thin stream of the Ogwr Fach shepherded by a constructed channel there is no indication of the formal presence of the boundary. Near the top of the valley, the road turns and comes back down the eastern side with the terraced rows forming another part of Gilfach Goch, there being no garden village in sight. I end up back where I started, consult the map and find I missed the ‘garden village’ early on. It is several roads all named after trees. The layout does not follow the framework of Garden City planning of using contours and buildings linked by large open spaces. It is mainly parallel roads of now considerably altered pairs of smallish semi-detached houses with many cars and a few caravans parked outside. 

Gilfach Goch  - Beech Street

There are no obvious public buildings and the open spaces are just the naturalness where the houses stop and the valley countryside begins.  As I look a car draws up and a young woman gets out managing both her toddler and her shopping. I walk to the end of the road and over the back I see another woman coming out of her conservatory and putting out the washing. The day is overcast, damp and cold. another lady comes out of the house next door, "Hopeful aren't you?" she says to her neighbour. I gaze at the view from the end of the street and a man approaches with a walking stick and with it points at the wind turbines inhabiting the tops of the hills, "Ugly things, aren't they?". I ask him where the community centre cafe is and he directs me back to the main road.

Gilfach Goch Garden Village - the houses in the middle of the valley

I drive to the modernish building which houses keep fit classes, creches, and the cafe. Outside an information board provides some history declaring that Gilfach Goch is recognised as being the inspiration for the village in Richard Llewellyn's 1939 novel, ‘How Green was my Valley’. On the board there is also some history of mining in the area, noting how a colliery manager developed an interest in fossils of the coal measures and gave a collection of over 20,000 specimens to the National Museum of Wales.

The board also tells me how the area became the first venture of the Welsh Garden Cities Ltd when it built Gilfach Garden Village between 1910 and 1914. What the board doesn’t tell me is that this company was led by the architect W. Beddoe Rees and was closely allied to the Powell Duffryn mining company. Although this housing company followed the lead of those set up with a supposedly philanthropic motivation, such as that of coal owner Davis Davies, their standards were far less than that used in other Garden City estates as the build quality was far lower than other places and their appearance does not follow the usual garden village aesthetic. 

Gilfach Goch Garden Village - Beech Street

The architect W. Beddoe Rees has an interesting history. He was born in Maesteg and he initially specialised in designing chapels. Perhaps his choice was deliberate because he was well placed to take advantage of the last surge of chapel building, following the 1904-5 Christian Revival in Wales. Amongst the chapels he designed were; Mount Zion English Baptist, Blaengarw (1904), Van Road Congregational, Caerphilly (1903), St. John's Wesleyan Methodist, Llandrindod Wells (1907), Ebeneser Welsh Wesleyan Methodist, Llandudno (1909), and Bethania Welsh Baptist, Maesteg (1908). However at some point he worked out that business was moving in a different direction and he established Welsh Garden Cities Ltd., the organisation which built "garden villages" in several of the industrial valleys of South Wales, including Gilfach Goch and also Cefn Hengoed. The essential features of these estates were that they were commissioned by Powell Dyffryn and that they did not follow the ubiquitous terraced housing of the valleys. During WW1, Beddoe Rees worked for the Ministry of Munitions with responsibilities for canteens and 'welfare' schemes for the workers making shells, guns and bombs. He was knighted for this in 1917. Following the war his business interests expanded into shipping and collieries, and by the early 1920s he was a very wealthy man. Early in his career he had been commissioned to 'gothicise' the 18th century farmhouse of Ty Mynydd in Radyr, a house with eleven bedrooms, a large library and over 5 acres of grounds. Mr and Mrs Dahl, Roald’s parents bought the house in 1918 and the author described it in his book in Boy: “a mighty house with turrets on its roof and with majestic lawns and terraces all around it. There were many acres of farm and woodland, and a number of cottages for the staff….” Following the death of the father in 1920 the Dahl’s moved out so with his previous knowledge Beddoe Rees bought Ty Mynydd off them and went on to construct a 6 hole golf course in the grounds. The house was demolished in 1967 and a modern housing estate of an upmarket variety was built on the site.

Ty Mynydd, Radyr

W. Beddoe Rees went into politics and became the Liberal M.P. for Bristol South, from 1922 to 1929. He consistently displayed his political orientation of being fiercely opposed to Labour and socialist ideas and took the opportunity of his maiden parliamentary speech to oppose a Bill designed to establish a minimum wage for coal miners. Miners whose wages were paying for the houses he had built. In 1930 he was made bankrupt when the Official Receiver stated that he had ‘engaged in rash and hazardous speculation and unjustifiable extravagance in living’. An extravagance beyond the reach of the worshippers of the Bethania’s of this world and a different life to those inhabiting the houses of Beech Street, Oak Street, Wood Street, etc., Gilfach Goch. 
“Rhymes with Porth.”

PONT YR TAF

It had been a long period of hot dry summer weather,  that we all knew would become wetter and cooler when the schools broke up at the end of July. But before that time came there had been no rain at all and the sun shone continually such that everybody walked around to do their shopping wearing their Mediterranean beach clothes. The non-existent rainfall had led to warnings of drought conditions for everyone. There were threats of hosepipe bans and the usual advice of putting dirty dishwater onto the garden and only flushing the toilet when absolutely necessary. These admonitions indicated that the stocks of water in the reservoirs would be low. The usual appearance of the lake-like reservoirs in the Taf Fawr valley above Methyr would be altered and a new shape of water would insert itself as the land reclaimed what it had lost through the engineering of men.

To serve as storage places for the water necessary to satisfy the thirst of the populace of Cardiff dams were built and the lower floors of the valley flooded. Although some farm buildings succumbed to the water the only clear remnant of a previous land-based existence is the bridge drowned under Llwyn Onn reservoir. So a trip up the A470 was called for to see a seldom observed feature reasserting itself above the water because of lack of rain.

Three reservoirs were built in the Taf Fawr valley by the Cardiff Corporation who in 1884 were empowered to impound a part of the waters of the river and its tributaries.

Llwyn Onn Reservoir - low water levels

The two upper reservoirs, Cantref and Beacons were completed and opened in 1892 and 1897 respectively. Work commenced on the third reservoir, Llwyn Onn, in January 1911, but was suspended in 1915 for the duration of WW1, then being fully commissioned in May 1927.

Unlike the previous months’ weather this journey began not hot and dry but with a mist thickening as I travelled north. Drizzle was hanging around as if it did not quite have the energy to turn itself into rain or to give up and go away. At the reservoir the shrunken nature of its shore line stood out. The land now no longer resting underwater but open to the air had a very definite reddish tint and the heat of the summer sun had caused it to crack, but everywhere there was a green blush to the ground as small plants and grasses had been able to establish themselves once the bottom of the reservoir had been exposed. This area was flatter and more gently sloping than the surrounding countryside with its rugged weather beaten topography. Clearly the water flowing into the reservoir was slowly placing mud and silt over its floor and hence a flat uniform surface was being formed.

Future Fossils

As I walked over the drying mud the imprint of the shoes of others could be seen everywhere, now waiting to be covered over when the rain came but leaving behind a modern fossil footprint. Leaves were also scattered and pressed into the silty floor providing a palaeontologist of the distant future with a complex contextual problem to solve. The red mud was made up of material eroded by streams and rivers cutting into Pen y Fan and Corn Du. These peaks just to the north are made of Devonian “Old Red Sandstone”, which form the outer rim of the geologic basin that holds the coalfield.  The strata were laid down when the area that is now Wales was situated south of the Equator. Times have changed and now we are very much north of the equator.  Over the 400 million years of its existence, the sand started as alluvium in large semi-arid lakes, then after it became rock it was lifted up by mountain making epochs then to be washed away by temperate rain only to find itself again in a lake-like body of water, this time made by man.

It was easy to see the bridge Pont yr Taf. It was towards the northern end of the reservoir. It now stood clear allowing it to perform its initial function of making it possible to traverse the River Taf Fawr which brought its water to the reservoir. Although an old map told me that the road ran north-east to south-west, the silting of the reservoir left no remnants of its existence, only the bridge with its east-west orientation remained. 

Pont Yr Taf

It clearly was a Victorian stone bridge made of two arches with facing stones on the outer walls and bricked surfaces on the inner faces of the arches. A large tree trunk rested against it clearly transported by the underwater currents of the Taff. One of the arch tops had nearly crumbled away but the keystone stood proud still trying to perform its duty of holding the structure together. The top layers of what would have been the road surface had long since gone and crossing it was like walking on uneven cobbles. In some places were holes and water glinted as it flowed underneath. 

Pont Yr Taf 2018

Later when I looked at images of the bridge as it emerged in the drought conditions of 1976 it was clear that in the intervening years there had been a deterioration of its structure as it slowly crumbled away. In future years it would completely lose it shape and in future drought conditions those seeking to walk across would not be able to do so. It would no longer be a bridge but just the ruin of one.

Pont Yr Taf

Near Pont yr Taf, on its western side had been the small village of Ynys-y-felin – clearly a name reflected the presence of the Pwllcoch woollen mill that stood there originally – the Mill of the Red Pond. Perhaps the name reflected the colour of the mud and rocks that were all around. There was also a public house, aptly named ‘The Red Lion’, a couple of houses, a small school and the Bethal Baptist Chapel. This chapel, founded in 1799, was dismantled and rebuilt before the flood – a task no doubt inspired by Noah; it is now passed by all as they travel on the A470. No signs of the buildings remain.

I had thought that to stand on Pont yr Taf would have given a feeling of reclaiming something that had been lost, but this was not the case, as the bridge and the land currently exposed had given up its function a long time ago and it was now just something laid bare as if by an unusual low tide. I felt that regardless of the weather that soon the water would come affirming its authority and the stones of the dismantling bridge would once again resume their location beneath the surface enliven only by with sunken branches bumping against them.

I was not the only person investigating the bridge, a man had bought his young daughter

and at his request I was happy to take some photographs of them on his phone. I wondered if the girl would remember standing on the bridge or whether it would be lost in her memory except created by the remembrance stimulated by a photograph to which she could say, “This is me and my Dad when the weather was so hot and dry that we could stand on bridge that is usually covered by water.” I wondered how the future story of this event would develop for her, perhaps it would just sit in the repository of a digital memory and become a personal myth dependant solely on the image.

Pont Yr Taf

MAESYRONNEN

Maesyronnen is the oldest surviving chapel in Wales and two Welsh poets have written verses about it - Roland Mathias and R.S. Thomas. It seemed like a good place to journey , being very accessible from Cardiff and so I plan a visit on a warm early summer’s day. As always travelling north via the A470 imbibes me with a sense of freedom; a sense of leaving something behind and heading towards the open and spaciousness of the Beacons onto Mid-Wales. But even though this day had some spiritual intention it is important to sustain the body first and so to Marian’s caravan cafe a frequent stop of mine on a morning journey north. Descending after Storey Arms, its location is declared by a large Welsh flag fluttering in the breeze. I call it ‘Marian's’ because that is the name of the lady who runs it, with whom I, like many others, have exchange chatty conversations numerous times. The caravan however bears the name ‘Paddy Sweeney’s’, the butcher from Brecon who owns it and who provides the excellent bacon for the breakfast roll I now sought.

Marian's cafe caravan A470

At the caravan, no Marian. Another lady is serving helped by a man cooking Paddy’s bacon on the griddle.

"Where is Marian?"

"She retired just two weeks ago."

"Oh,” I say disappointedly “It seemed as if she'd been here forever."

"Well, her forever was 20 odd years. She’d done her stint and she just thought it was the time to go."

I send my best wishes and wonder if the new lady would last as long as Marian.

A large Curry’s van draws up; on its side it declares that it will help me, “with all life's kit". I begin to ponder whether that life lasts over 20 years and now know it is time to leave and journey onward.

I travel the road from Brecon toward Herford and the Welsh Marches and getting to my chapel destination is straight forward as it is signposted off the main road and then on a steep country road it is again signposted. The lane up to the chapel is almost overgrown with cowslips in their full summer growth. I arrive at the building which is set on its own, I leave the car and walk up to the door. There is a notice announcing that if entry is sought  the key can be obtained from the workshop up the road. I am pleased that I may get in, being luckier than poet Thomas, who in his short prose piece on the place describes how he was unable to enter; he spent his time quietly lying on the grass in the small graveyard while his wife Elsi sketched. As directed I travel in my car further up the country road until in the small village of Ffynnon Gynydd I come to a large modern barnlike structure which is the rural steel fabrication workshop from where I have been instructed is the key. There are iron girders all around, the strong smell of oil and welding sparks bursting at the back.  A man appears out of the shadows, “Can I help you?”

"I was wondering if I could have the key to the chapel."

"No problem." He goes up some steps to an overlooking office and returns with a big key which he gives to me. I'm a little taken aback by the ease of this, "Don't I have to sign for something. Don't you need my address?"

"No need. Just bring it back when you're finished." He smiles and then casually walks away.

I'm touched by the trust given to me in holding the key which now suddenly has acquired a considerable value in its own being. I go back to the chapel securing the key in my trouser pocket and checking on it twice during the short journey.

The chapel building looks like many old Welsh farm constructions. A longer white section defines the religious side of the building with an appended cottage of bare stone at the other end. The chapel was converted from a barn in about 1690 and was licensed as a place of worship in 1697. It is quite possible that the old barn was used as a secret place of worship for Dissenters from about 1640 before the time of the Civil War, and Oliver Cromwell is said to have visited to worship here. 

Maesyronnen, cottage and chapel

I open the door and immediately am taken in by stillness, becoming very aware of being there on my own. The midday sun shines through the end windows and shadows lie across the oak fittings and wooden furniture. 

Maesyronnen Chapel

The flagstone floor looks wet from a newly completed wash but it is just condensation on the cold stone. A strong scent of lilies wafts through the space arising from vases of fresh flowers. With a degree of ceremony I place the key on the table - the table around which the congregation sit when they partake of Holy Communion. 

Communion table, Maesyronnen Chapel

Such is the way the serenity inside the building gently infuses everything that any motivation to look around is immediately lost. All there is to do is to sit quietly on a chair. It felt a privilege to be there on my own. There is just the sounds of country silence soothingly entering into the space; the occasional baaing of sheep, the moo of the occasional cow, the cackling of crows, somewhere a tractor moves, there is the rustle of leaves and branches as the wind stirs the nearby trees and in the distance birds singing.

Pulpit, Maesyronnen Chapel

After a while I rise from my seat and look around at a place that has already acquired a familiarity for me. I survey the bookcase with all the volumes of the People's Bible, noting Genesis by the witness of its wornness as being the one most consulted. On the pulpit I read the names of the people who have been the ministers of this small place, who as Mathias records “launched the lighted Word within these walls”. 

The list starts with a gentleman called Richard Powell who commenced his ministry on the uncertain date of “164?” and completed his service in 1658.  The last recorded of those who have officiated to the needs of the congregation is Greg Thompson - “2004 – 2014”. Those who continue the same task today will know that their names will be added when the time comes. I think about the length of time that spiritual practice has been engaged. This time has concentrated the effect of that practice here and explains the ease with which the calmness of one's own spirit is evoked. Little wonder that Thomas labelled the place as “The Chapel of the Spirit”, as it was here that he experienced an epiphany  “As with St. John the Divine on the island of Patmos I was `in the Spirit’ and I had a vision, in which I could comprehend the breadth and length and depth and height of the mystery of the creation. But I won’t try to put the experience into words. It would be impossible. I will simply say that I realised there was really no such thing as time, no beginning and no end but that everything is a fountain welling up endlessly from immortal God.”  The timelessness in the sense of the ceasing of time is almost palpable as indeed is the presence of generations of previous worshippers. Thomas alludes to this presence in his sonnet ‘Maes-yr-onnen’ in the last three lines which read,

“You cannot hear as I, incredulous, heard

Up in the rafters, where the bell should ring,

The wild, sweet singing of Rhiannon’s birds.”

These are the supernatural birds of the Mabinogion who by their beautiful singing can "wake the dead and lull the living to sleep".

I look at the gravestones on the wall where several record a woman who survived her husband as a ‘relict’. How did that word become associated with widowhood and when did we thankfully give up its use? I read the small plaque on the bench which testifies to the sacrifice of two men in the congregation who gave their lives during the First World War. 

Memorial, Maesyronnen Chapel

Thomas Williams of the 2^nd Battalion South Wales Borders died October 3^rd 1916 which would have been during the Battle of Transloy Ridges, a phase of Battle of the Somme. The other, Williams Edward Jones, maintained a Welsh Marches tradition of joining an English regiment, the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry; he died on March 21^st 1918 which was the first day of the German Spring Offensive of that year. I reflect on the way the chapel holds the life of those who have died. The memorial plaque states “We are debtors”. I wonder what the poet Mathias made of this on his visit as during the Second World War he registered as a conscientious objector; he would not accept non-combatant duties in support of the war effort, as his choice was to continue teaching without pay. His principled determination resulted in a sentence of three months' jail with hard labour in 1941 and again in 1942 but during the latter, his pupils in Reading collected money to pay the fine and obtain his release. We are also indebted to such ethically and morally led men and women.

Time and again I am drawn to the sunlight resting on the furniture and flagstones with it possessing a settling effect. Quite naturally I know the thing to do before I leave is to sit and meditate once again. During the silence I faintly hear birdsong and the two old poets, no doubt also responding to Rhiannon’s Birds, look in through the window. I wonder if they'll come in, but it is only I who is honoured by the solitude and sanctuary that the chapel offers today.

It is time to leave and as I am locking the door with the sacred key, a car draws up. An older man and woman and presumably their two grandchildren get out. The woman asks if I have the key, I show it to her and explain that I had just locked up. “I wonder if you would mind letting me in,” she says, “we have hired the cottage next door and I want to buy some of the postcards that I know are there.” I enter again this time with her and the chapel itself seems to smile at our social conversation and this allows her and I to carry on whilst the chapel itself continues in its own serene way. We both purchase some postcards and feeling responsible for the security of the place I make sure we leave it tidy and secure. Outside as we chat we discover that we worked in the same type of jobs. She wonders where I come from and remembers a place that she was on placement as a student for a short period of time. We compare times and, yes, she was at the place I worked nearly 40 years ago. I do not remember her and she vaguely remembers my name. Another ghost - the ghost of my younger self; Rhiannon’s birds have indeed been singing.

 

that long sleep's breathing
resurrected
by sun, shadows and birdsong

I return home by the same route I came. Passing the cafe caravan I notice it is being closed and shut up. Forever has ended for today and all of life’s kit is safely stowed.

Eddy Street. Cardiff. June 2018

 ‘Maesyronnen’ by Roland Mathias

Across the field, beyond the lordly hedge,

One side as anciently toward the poor,

The long white chapel leans, a living pledge

Left by the men who broke their Babylon,

The staple of the state.

But now the roof with four blue feet of sky,

The half blocked up with boards, lifts ominous:

A blackened stove with scaly tenebrate

Climbs roundly to the beams: and boxed nearby

Lie dusty hymn-books only ten years old

To indicate the poor and present few,

The incubus

Of braver days.

This angle hides a stiff-necked family pew:

One worthy on his haunches saw the lips

That poured forth assonance of truth, the while

He balked with thick eclipse

Dry contemplation of the undevout.

This oaken pen would hide his children too,

The sidelong smile,

The bag crackling uncomfortably out

And little hands drumming the sermon through.

Here at this curious benched table sat

In controversial quorum, face to face,

The leaders of the faith.

Beside the door, in that more cumbered place,

The stranger man, the last uncertain lout

Hunched quickly on his form the cheap machine

Has planed to poverty. In front set out

One hoary bench, thick as a quarried flag

And sagging with the dropsy, bellies back

Into an older age.

Upon the pulpit board new bossed with black

Gleaming with gold leaf, gallant as a page

On which the day’s illumination falls,

Start out the names of tens of serving-men

Who launched the lighted Word within these walls

Three hundred years ago, who flung the gage

Downhill across the Wye.

Stand by the door. Be silent, see

Jogging evangelists come in aflame

And seeking men stride out of Breconshire.

Now it is Lord’s Day evening. Hear the free

Sonority of Welsh come hushing out

Over the nodding heads, the English psalms

Of a believer with a Hereford name

Choiring the neighbourhood.

Up many a lonely cwm for miles around

The disputatious climb, mouthing the good,

To rack the Church and curse Her Popish springs.

Now by each lonely fire the ashes sound,

The finger in the book falls on the text

Weighing the household sin. And lo who sings

The penitential round ...

This was the anvil. Now the sparks beat out

In darker hammering and a little dust.

'Maes-yr-Onnen' by R. S. Thomas

Though I describe it stone by stone, the chapel

Left stranded in the hurrying grass,

Painting faithfully the mossed tiles and the tree,

The one listener to the long homily

Of the ministering wind, and the dry, locked doors,

And the stale piety, mouldering within;

You cannot share with me that rarer air,

Blue as a flower and heady with the scent

Of the years past and others yet to be,

That brushed each window and outsoared the clouds’

Far foliage with its own high canopy.

You cannot hear as I, incredulous, heard

Up in the rafters, where the bell should ring,

The wild, sweet singing of Rhiannon’s birds.