These two images, one taken at the turn of the Twentieth
Century and the other in 2003, are a dramatic illustration
of the changes to the Greenfach area in the intervening years.
The landmarks of Siloa Chapel, and the towers of St
Elvan's Church and the Constitutional Club can be identified
in both photographs, but little else remains the same. Crown
buildings now stand on the site of Gadlys Row on the left
of the photograph, whilst on the right Dare Place, Dare Street
and Chapel Street have been demolished and the site has become
a car park.
The clearance of Green
Fach to build the New Library
In 1961 work was undertaken to clear the Greenfach area
to develop a new library and municipal buildings. The Green
Dragon Inn, which had been open since at least 1835, and
several streets and other buildings were destroyed. Greenfach
was constructed on the site of the old Aberdare Village in
the 1840's and 1850's, at the same time as much of the Town
centre was developed.
Greenfach soon developed a reputation as the least savoury area of the town.
In the 1853 report by Thomas Webster Rammell on sanitary conditions in Aberdare,
Greenfach was described as a location; "where there are a large number of
houses crowded together upon a very limited space, without any street paving,
drainage of any kind, or ventilation. These houses have, most of them, been lately
built." Greenfach also became identified with criminal and bawdy behaviour
in the Nineteenth Century
Dare Street
decorated for the coronation of King George VI and Queen
Elizabeth in May 1937. The photograph reveals the small
size of the houses built in Greenfach and their close proximity
to one another. Many of the houses constructed in the mid
Nineteenth Century would have been built cheaply, using
undressed stone and with shallow foundations. It was for
these reasons that the houses in Greenfach were cleared
in the early 1960's.
