THE ABER VALLEY CYCLE TRACK. Penyrheol to Senghenydd

Here is a picture of my Auntie Bet probably taken at the end of the 1940s.

Penyrheol Station

She is standing at Penyrheol station, which is on the line from Senghenydd to Caerphilly known as the Aber branch.

Of course the line is no longer there. Passenger traffic was stopped in 1964. The station at Penyrheol is no longer there. If you don't know where to look, you just wouldn't know where the railway line was and where the platform stood. The only clue is in the name of the road ‘Station Terrace’. As you go towards B4263, it is on the right before you come to the roundabout. The road rises but there is not even a railway bridge to let you know that trains passed underneath. Here is a picture of the spot now - just a little bit wasteland leading to some industrial units.

 As you look towards Caerphilly you can see the hint of straightness left by the impression of the tracks.

On the left to where the station stood is the entrance to the Aber Valley Cycle Track which is the path for today’s journey. The track runs next the sound of the small river and as always with these ex-railway cycle tracks there are only a few reminders of what they were originally - the gate of a small level crossing. a bridge over the line and occasionally piles of limestone ballast.

After a mile or so, all uphill, is the remnants of Abertridwr station. I walk over the raised area of the platform and stand where the ticket office probably was. 

Abertridwr Station 

I find the entrance to the station and walk up a  side street. An old lady is waiting for a bus.

She smiles, “Are you taking photographs because your family came from round here?”

“Sort of.   Do you remember the station?”

“Yes of course. It was the only way we could travel then. No buses. Just scandalous that they closed it all.” She pauses. “Everything changes.” She looks back toward the valley side. “I live in that terrace over there. Out my back I could just look and see the mountain. But then they build houses and I tell you they're the worst looking houses in the world. Townhouses they call them. Ugly three-storey things. That's all I see out my back window now houses. Lost my view I have. But all told, it's a nice village to live in.”

I tell her about the little flowery china vase I found amongst my mother's possessions when she died. It had ‘A Present from Abertridwr’ written on the side in gold paint, just like the ones you see from Blackpool or Barry Island. “I know it's nice to give gifts but I can't imagine why they made something as a present from Abertridwr.”

She laughs at me. “Well, we did that sort of thing then. And I bet I know the shop that it was bought from. That shop sells kababby things now.” Another pause. “Everything changes.”

The bus comes and she tells me she's only going one stop, just to the square as it saves her legs and she has her bus pass.

I go back to the station and cycle just a few yards and go over a road and take a photograph of the Working Men's Institute. John Roberts known as ‘Jack Russia’, the Communist councillor and Spanish war veteran was the manager here, obviously not being a desirable employee for the coal owners after his activities.

Abertridwr Working Men's Institute

He too was a cyclist, but of a different order, as he cycled from Abertridwr to London in 1936 to support the Unemployment March.

From Abertridwr the cycle path seems to go in a variety of loops round the area that was Windsor Colliery. The area now flattened. There are some new houses and new school on part of the site.

I visit the memorial to those who died in the pit. It is a black round column and if you look closely at the top you can make out a model presumably of the pithead. To really see it you would have to be level perhaps on by standing on a ladder. In comparison to the images of miners and the names of those who died underground the model is small. The whole monument does imply that there was a top but the activity and the deaths were all underneath.

Windsor Colliery Memorial

The  cycle path goes past Senghenydd rugby club and comes to an end at what would have been the entrance to the station. The area is now used for houses and bungalows. The dwellings that form another ‘Station Terrace’ appear somewhat stranded.

As you leave the cycle path the bridge that would have been over the railway has printings in commemoration to the mining disasters of 1901 and 1915.

I cycle into Senghenydd Square, signified by the War Memorial which as always in these cases was erected by the great and good of the area long before the Memorial to those who died underground in pursuit of coal.

Senghenydd Square

In the cafe a man eating his jumbo breakfast says, “I see that you locked your bike to the War Memorial. You have to be careful around here.” I nod.

“Have you been to the mining Memorial yet?” he asks.

“Not today. Bacon sandwich and then home. Downhill now”

“Like everything else around here.”

We laugh together.