Birth of a Valley Project

Birth of a Valley

The History of Pontardawe and the Swansea Valley is to be recorded and preserved thanks to an award of £49,500 from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The ‘Birth of a Valley’ project will enable the community to bring together the diverse heritage of their area, highlighting in particular the significant role played by the Swansea Canal in its development.

The award has enabled Arena Pontardawe to employ a Heritage Officer for the next two years to develop a series of activities, which will create community awareness and participation. The ‘Birth of a Valley’ project is linked to the renovation of the disused Riverside Park Interpretation Centre, adjacent to the Canal and the river Tawe, so eventually there will be an information and exhibition centre for the project.

The award will enable members of Arena Pontardawe to collect and safeguard information and material that would otherwise be lost to future generations, and to highlight the national importance of Pontardawe and the Swansea Valley and put into context the significance of the canal to the local mining, iron making, tinplate, pottery manufacture and quarrying industries of the area.

Our Heritage Officer is always on the look out for information / photographs etc about the Valley’s industrial - and indeed recreational - past, so if you think you can help please get in touch via the Contact page. We are always extremely grateful for donated photographs and artefacts but if you wish to hold on to valued family items then we can scan and return them to you.

One such wonderful find was Jack Phillip’s notebook. Jack was foreman on the Swansea Canal and his jottings over almost 20 years give a remarkable insight into his work related duties and domestic interests. See my article, A Canal Foreman’s Notebook, lower down the page.

Equestrianism and Pedestrianism at Glais Race Course

Not much seems to be known about Glais Racecourse which once occupied flat land now taken up by the A4067 by-pass and the Mond golf club. When was it established, and when did it finally shut up shop?

Here is what we have been able to discover since Mrs Powell of Gwyn Street, Alltwen recently donated three official race cards (6d) from the early 1920s. Racing seemed to be a regular fortnightly event in the summer months. In 1920, there were at least ten race meetings. Admission to the ‘Enclosure’ was 2/4d, with a concession for ladies and children who paid only 1/3d. Motorcars and carriages cost 3/6d. The race cards were printed by Will Hopkin of Pontardawe, the grandfather of Mary Hopkin.

A number of questions come to mind when one considers these intriguing documents. Each one advertises ‘Galloway, Trotting and Foot Events’. Judges are listed, (including Capt. D. Ivor Evans of Graig-Y-Pal) so too a Clerk of the Course, a Handicapper, Starter and Veterinary Surgeon along with other officials. One card makes it clear that Glais Races took place under Welsh Racing Rules and gambling was certainly a part of the day’s events as bookmakers and public were informed that a red flag signalled disqualification. Prize money totalled £220 on each occasion and an advertised bank holiday meeting in 1920 boasted £400 in prizes.

Your Help is Needed

Here is a photograph of some of the Racecourse Officials – can you help identify anyone in the picture?

Trotting is easy enough to understand and this form of horse racing has survived locally but what to make of the other two?

Galloway horses from the west of Scotland were the original British racehorse, renowned for their speed and strength and later bred with Arabians to produce the thoroughbreds we associate with racing today. Glais Races advertised ‘a six furlongs Galloway dash’ and a ‘one mile Galloway’. Galloway Races it seems were races in which weight was allocated according to the size of the horse; e.g. 13h carried 7st., 14h carried 9st., 15h carried 11st.

The ‘Foot Events’ at Glais were all over 100 yards and were for professional and semi-professional athletes competing in so-called “Powderhall Sprints” for prize money. In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, the inhabitants of all industrial areas in Great Britain were obsessed with organised sport. Boxing and foot-racing sports attracted big money gamblers and nationwide thousands of spectators attended displays of ‘Pedestrianism’ as professional running and walking was then known.

The Welsh valleys produced a surprising number of professional and semi-professional runners and as the races were handicapped to ensure close finishes betting coups and malpractice were not unknown. At Glais, most of the athletes competing for a first prize of £15 were local but competitors came from as far away as Llanelli, Caerphilly, Cardiff and even Gloucester. I don’t know exactly what the average weekly wage was in 1920 but I’d guess £15 was more than most people earned in a month.

Here are the results for Saturday 28 August 1920 as reported in a local newspaper, The Labour Voice: -

One Hundred Yards Sprint (£15) O. Alexander (Pontardawe)
Six Furlongs Trotting (£30) Mr Thomas (Clydach) with Doris.
Six Furlongs Galloway (£30) Mr Jones (Cwmtwrch) with Tussle.
One Mile Trotting (£50) Mr Howells (Glais) with Tom.
One Mile Galloway (£50) Mr Lewis (Aberdare) with Little Eva.

Mr Howells (Glais), owner of Tom, also owned Dick who finished in third place (£3) in the race won by Tom. William Howells (1882-1963) was farm bailiff at Llwyn-du farm, Glais.

A Canal Foreman’s Notebook

(John Phillips was born on 14^th August 1902/03? in Newbridge-on-Wye, Radnorshire and died aged about 76, back on his native turf.)

Jack Phillips, Swansea Canal foreman, late of 5, Factory Road, Clydach was a conscientious workman and a diligent recorder of day-to-day maintenance tasks as his recently acquired GWR work diary/notebook attests.

Jack Phillips' Notebook The notebook, which runs from 1933-1950, has been loaned by Mr and Mrs Tom Lawrence of Heol-Y-Cae, Clydach who responded to a press release in The Evening Post publicising my appointment as Heritage Lottery funded research officer to work on the Birth of a Valley project in conjunction with the Arena Pontardawe/Swansea Canal Society partnership. The Lawrences have recently moved back to the Swansea Valley and were thrilled to realise that Jack, Mrs Lawrence’s father, was already known to the Swansea Canal Society from photographs and oral and written records. His written record, mainly in pencil, has now been scanned and recorded for archive purposes.

His notebook begins two years after the last commercial cargo was carried on the Swansea Canal (Hill’s Colliery Co., Clydach carried coal to Swansea in 1931), and shows just how much work was required to maintain the waterway and keep it in tip-top condition.

Many of the entries merely give a date or dates and note that the canal was cleared at a specific place, from Swansea to Ystradgynlais. Clearing and other work, such as grass cutting, ditching, fencing and hedge trimming was carried out at Landore, Plasmarl, Morriston , Ynystawe, Clydach, Trebanos, Pontardawe, Ynysmeudwy, Ystalyfera and places in between. Cwmshon (sic) was a problem then as now, and gets a number of mentions in the notebook. In December 1934 it needed attention on the 13^th and 14^th and they were back there on Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and the day after. These mundane but necessary tasks were sometimes carried out in difficult conditions. Jack mentions in passing a “Big flood in Tawe” on October 11^th 1933, with 5ft 9”of water recorded in the water pumping station and working on the canal at Trebanos in February 1937 during a snow storm. There are also a couple of occasions when it seems he did not see eye-to-eye with his boss, recorded tersely as “trouble with engineer.”

Work on a variety of weirs is recorded in the following terms. “Flagging on weir”, “repairing weir at Ystalyfera. (Two horses)”, “finished flagging and concreting on weir”. Work on The Swansea Canal extended in those days to “fixing stones in the river” (Sept.12^th 1941). Jack and his crew also scaled boilers at Clydach, cleaned the flues of those same boilers, erected notice boards at Ynystawe, replaced sleepers on various “feeders”, inspected and repaired culverts, fixed “trunks” and attended to floodwater (1.00pm-7.00pm Jan 23^rd 1944). They were also regularly called upon to deal with leaks in the canal, sometimes major ones it seems - “Stopping leak at Pontardawe 6.30am-5.30pm” (March 13^th 1949).

So, canal maintenance often meant long hours and presumably hard physical labour. Jack Phillips notes his weekly pay on a couple of occasions, probably when he was pleased it had exceeded average expectations - “Pay w.e. Sat. Sept. 27^th 1941, £5-11-7.” He also recorded the number of Sundays he worked during the year (Double time/Time and a half?). For example, he worked 31 Sundays in 1939 and 35 Sundays in 1944. He mentions regularly when he receives his Insurance Card, and that on Nov. 20^th 1942 he was issued with “new coat and leggings.” His fellow workers are named as “George in Pontardawe” (George Holloway) and “G. John” (Thomas Gwynn John) who received a new pair of boots on Jan.6^th 1936. Interestingly he also makes a note of a new recruit - Feb.25^th 1938 “J. Edwards started work on the canal.”

The notebook mentions “one horse” or “two horses” aiding the work on a number of occasions, right up until 1948. Jack’s background on a small holding in Radnorshire suggests he was accustomed to working with horses but he also notes when they had the use of a motor car. An example occurs in an entry for Aug.17^th 1941 - “From 7.00am-7.00pm, clearing canal at Ystalyfera (Motor Car).

Domestic and personal events crop up from time to time in this fascinating social document. There is the design (undated) for what looks like a love spoon, a brief entry for a marriage - March 10^th 1938, “Miss Williams married.”, the purchase of a blowlamp for 17/9d in January 1945 and later “Money received for odd jobs for year 1945 - £16-9-8.” Jack was also a member of The St. John’s Ambulance brigade and dutifully records his revision notes and the dates of his re-examinations, including the award of a gold medal in 1941 and gold bar in 1946.

I’m sure there are other insights to be gleaned from this document and look forward to bringing you regular updates after a full transcription is possible.