The Welsh word Pentref usually means village
or ‘homestead', but in the case of Pentre, Rhondda it refers
to an old farmstead and its buildings which was situated
in the area. This farm was quite substantial in size and
was known as ‘Y Pentref' long before an actual village
grew up in the area with the advent of the mining industry.
In common with the majority of the Rhondda, prior to industrialisation, Pentre
consisted of a number of scattered farms, such as Pentre and Maendy, farmed by
tenant farmers and owned by absentee landlords.
However the increasing need for coal, and the profits
it could bring led inevitably to speculators invading all
parts of the Rhondda Valley. Thus in 1857 Edward Curteis
of Llandaff leased the mineral rights of Tyr-Y-Pentre from
Griffith Llewellyn of Baglan, and immediately afterwards
the Pentre and Church levels were opened. By the beginning
of 1864 shafts had been opened by the ‘Pentre Coal Company'
to the to the deeper steam coal seams and a second pit was
sunk at Pentre Pentre at that time became one of the largest
and most profitable collieries in the Valley. It was at this
time Pentre as an actual village in its own right really
came into being.
By the early 1900's Pentre was a bustling township, and
was seen as the main shopping area for the top end of the
Rhondda Fawr, boasting amongst others six chain stores and
two Co-ops. However with the closure of the Pentre colliery
it was superceded by Treorchy. It also became the centre
of local government in the Rhondda when the Council Offices
were built in Llewellyn Street in 1882. Pentre also boasts ‘The
Cathedral of the Rhondda', St.Peters Church which was consecrated
in 1890, and whose impressive tower dominates the Pentre
landscape
It also boasted, for many years the home of Pentre Breweries,
formed in 1875, the beers from which were served in Public
houses throughout the South Wales Valleys.
In October 1916 a landslide occurred in Pentre that engulfed a number of shops
and a skating rink and threatening the only road link through the Rhondda Fawr,
leading the local council to build a second road between Ton Pentre and Cwmparc.
Below: Cubitt and Llewellyn's Foundry - Established by Griffith Llewellyn of
Baglan and William Cubitt, the building is now the Territorial Drill Hall.
Apart from the mines a major enterprise within Pentre
was the Rhondda Engine Works run by Messrs. Llewelyn and
Cubitt Ltd. a firm of engineers, iron and brass founders.
This firm for half a century supplied some of the best-designed
and most reliable colliery equipment to mining concerns throughout
South Wales. Griffith Llewellyn of Baglan, who owned large
areas of land in the Rhondda, and William Cubitt of London,
began the enterprise in 1874. Their workshops consisted of
an engine-house, iron and brass foundry, boiler shop and
a smithy, and were erected on a portion of the Baglan Estate
a quarter of a mile from the Taff Vale Railway station.
At the turn of the century over 100 expert craftsmen were employed at these
works. Before its dismantling in 1915 most of the Rhondda Collieries opened
in the previous forty years had been supplied with steel pithead frames, pit
cages and many of the other essential equipment associated with the mining industry
from the firm of Llewelyn and Cubitt.
