Y Filltir Sgwâr/The Square Mile: Hidden History

In a year long series Tom Maloney, from Abersychan, shows how you can love a place so well it becomes a part of you.

As I have been learning Welsh some phrases stick in my mind easier than others. I am sure that this will be the case with others on this voyage of discovery as well.

One phrase that I like very much is ‘fy hoff le’ which means ‘my favourite place’ and whenever I wander at Cwm Ffrwd these three little words spring out at me every time. It most definitely has to be one of my favourite places!

Well, what makes Cwm Ffrwd special? This is a little valley with bags of charm and huge contrasts, of hidden woodland oases, hidden history and hidden stories. It rewards all your senses and more, but to get the best you really have to take time to appreciate what you see. I don’t think I have ever been on a short walk here, it’s not so much about the steps, it grips your attention tightly and the time flies.

Autumn has still a way to go in the valley and on Monday you could even have been forgiven for thinking it was spring. I have a preference for beginning my walks here along a little lane just behind Talywain Rugby Club. There was warmth in the air and a freshness to the colour straight from the palette of Alfred Sisley in an archway of trees like so many delicate brush strokes from his hand.

This was a mining valley and legacy of this industrial past is ever present in the stark mounds of colliery spoil that will be encountered on any walk here. And yet … although they appear so barren of vegetation to the naked eye from a distance, sheep can often be seen steadfastly grazing on their steep slopes.

But this is a place where everything is not always as it seems at first sight and not all of its mining past is obvious. In fact, you could easily miss the signs that the landscape has been changed. One such place is the site where Lower Varteg Colliery once stood.

At first, you will just see an expanse of meadow land, beyond a kissing gate with panoramic views to Mynydd Garnclochy and Mynydd Garn-wen. It’s a place that I have walked so many, many times, always wondering a little about its history. The Ffrwd stream is culverted here for some distance, so it is clear that man has shaped the land, but with what purpose?

I should have suspected coal mining of course, but I was still nevertheless very surprised to learn that a colliery was once located in this place, it is so very different today.

The ‘Welsh Coal Mines’ website provides key dates and facts about the significant way in which the land was once used to extract coal.

‘Lower Varteg Collieries consisted of a pit, which was sunk first and the slope (keystone inscription 1899). The first sods of the new mine were dug in 1898 the owners being Thomas Deakin and Henry Jayne. There were 559 employed in 1945. The Lower Slope (Deakin’s) closed on the 1^st January 1957.’  

This number of people employed may well be part of a combined total with several other local pits, but it is safe to assume that this was a significant employer.

A lovely story about life at the pit came from an unusual source. ‘The Internet Bandsman’s Everything Within’ (IBEW) tells the story of how one young man came to be a member of Varteg Silver Band and found work.

‘When Haydn Jones, as a lad, was walking around the village with some of his friends, Mr. Tipton asked the lads if they were working, only to be told that they had tried for a job in the colliery but nothing was available. Mr. Tipton assured them if any of them wanted a job in the pit, they just had to turn up at the Band Hall on band night, join the band and a job in the pit would be theirs. Haydn joined the band and he, in return, got a job. The job lasted up until his death in 1956 and he was a proud member of Varteg Silver Band for many years. (reported by his son, Grayham Jones)’

And … who was Mr. Tipton?

‘Mr. Tipton was an official at Lower Varteg Colliery, and also a committee member of Varteg Silver Band. The band was formed in July 1914, competed at Crystal Palace in the 1930s, were “C” class champions in the South Wales & Monmouthshire contest in 1944, and were still active in 1948.’

I do so enjoy stories like this, they immediately make you smile. Mr. Tipton sounds like quite a character, ‘a mover and shaker’, someone who was passionate about the melodic sound of a silver band, but at the same time someone who enjoyed the edge that competition brings as well.

It is a reminder that there was another side to the story of coal. Many, many miners will tell you that they do not miss the extreme hardship and dangers of work at the coal face, but that they do miss the comradeship of a closely knit community.

Though I dare say it was not always perfect, the dangers faced touched everyone and bound them together. People knew each other well, families were connected, they played sport together, sang together and indeed were proud to turn out for the colliery band.

A little vestige of the colliery does still exist in a nearby field. There has been landscaping and from a distance a stone archway that was once the entrance to the pit is only just visible above a dip in the field, but it is well worth a stop to take a closer look.

The date in the keystone gives 1899, dating the mine to the last years of Queen Victoria’s reign and to my eyes the carving is as crisp and clear now as the day it was made 125 years ago.

For safety reasons the entrance is of course blocked, but someone has tried to preserve the heritage with the permanent installation of two old and battered coal drams that look as if they could once have spent their working life here. As is their new purpose, they make you think and wonder.

Coal drams

Old and rusting

No work today

Or any day now

How many journeys

Have you made?

How many tons of coal

Have you taken out?

The story of your work

Is sealed and secret

In the concrete

That embeds

Your wheels.

The contrasts of Cwm Ffrwd do not end here.

All the while that the coal was being mined at Lower Varteg Colliery a little oasis of woodland survived only a short distance away in the upper reaches of the valley. It still remains a haven of tranquility of waterfalls and cascades that I very much treasure.