Ton Pentre, in common with a number of
the villages of the Rhondda, derives its name from a farm,
which stood on the land pre-industrialisation. The farm,
and a few cottages clustered around it were known as ‘Y
Ton', Ton being the welsh word for meadow. The village
that grew up was originally referred to as Ton, but later
became known as Ton Pentre to distinguish it from Tonypandy.
Indeed in the 1906 ‘Kelly's Directory of South Wales' the
town is referred to as Ton or Ton Pentre or Ton Ystrad.
The 1847 tithe map of the area shows the land as being
owned by the Crawshay Bailey estate and farmed by tenants
such as Evan Jenkins and Mary Bailey, at Ton farm and Tyr
Yr Eglwys respectively.
Tyr Yr Eglwys being named for the only other building
of note in the area at that time, the parish church of St.
John's (Eglwys being the Welsh word for church). Records
show that a place of Christian worship existed on this site
from as early as possibly the sixth or seventh century. Ton
also boasted another large church, that of St. David a chapel
of ease to St. Johns. This was erected in 1881 by Crawshay
Bailey at a cost of £6,000, and had room for 550 worshippers.
Another notable building in Ton Pentre was the ‘Ocean Collieries,
Maindy and Eastern Workmen's library' in Church Road. This
was erected by the workmen of the Maindy and Eastern pits
and opened in 1895 at a cost of £4,000.
General view of Ton Pentre Circa 1900
Ton Pentre, for a time, also boasted its very own golf
course where a future King of England was to play a round
in 1924. An impression of how busy each of the little ‘townships'
of The Rhondda were in the latter half of the 19th and
early part of the 20th century can be seen from the listings
for Ton Pentre in the 1901 Kelly's Directory. The commercial
listing for Ton Pentre included, amongst others, 8 butchers,
2 dress makers, 3 hair dressers, 9 grocers, 3 greengrocers,
10 shopkeepers, 6 tailors, 4 boot makers, 4 public houses,
a cab proprietor, a blacksmith, 3 builders and contractors,
a carter, a farmer, a news agent, 2 iron and brass founders,
a chemist and druggist as well as the Ton Industrial Co-Operative
Society.
Ton Pentre miners Circa 1890
In contrast to today, with the easy availability
of public transportation and mass car ownership leading to
the age of the supermarket and out own town shopping, each
small town was forced to provide all the necessities of daily
life leading to thriving town centres.
The pioneer of coal working in this area of the Rhondda, and hence the development
of Ton itself, was David Davies, Llandinam. Who together with his partners negotiated
the lease of 8,000 acres at Cwmparc and Maendy at Ton Pentre in the late 1860's?
The rich steam coal seams were eventually reached at depths of over 200 yards
at the Maendy colliery. Unlike some mine owners who made little or no effort
in terms of providing housing for the influx of workers to their pits, David
Davies was praised for the miners' cottages he constructed for his workers at
Ton Pentre.
Ton Pentre Golf Club
In the early 1920's on a piece of mountain above Ton
Pentre, known as ‘Waun Ton Pentre' where children had for
years played football, a small band of local miners began
to set up a very basic golf course. They had managed to
collect a few second hand golf clubs, and were given a
few acres of mountainside on which to play. For the first
year the course consisted of four holes cut with ex-service
jack knives in each corner of the pitch, with no greens
or tees. At this time the Ocean Area Recreation Union was
formed, and succeeded in negotiating with the Ocean Coal
Company and the Crawshay Bailey Estate, extending the course
to some fifty acres and securing for the members a direct
lease on the land. The club held its first annual meeting
in the drawing room of a local minister, and local miners
volunteered their time to set up this new expanded course,
which included setting mountain fires to clear the rough
grass on the new course. Grants from the Miners Welfare
fund, and members' subscriptions, allowed for the hiring
of a dedicated groundsman , which in time led to improved
greens and tees for this nine hole course. The club thrived,
membership rose and an old barn was converted to a pavilion
for players.
Then in May 1924 came the club's proudest moment, when His
Royal Highness the Duke of York, later King George VI, agreed
to play a foursome match there against Mr. Frank Hodges M.P.
On the 17th May huge crowds turned out to see the future
King, play a round of golf on what had until recently been
a bare patch of mountainside, The Duke eventually losing
the match. Although the club thrived for a number of years
by 1960 local historian Arthur Hazzard describes the course
as having been abandoned for several years, and as having
reverted to farming use.
Right: His Majesty King George VI, when Duke of York, playing
golf at Ton Pentre, May 17th, 1924
The Story of the Parish of St. David,
Ton Pentre
For a history of the Parish and church of St. David's
we are fortunate to have a book outlining the events written
by a Muriel Evans in 1959.
She deals in detail with the incumbency of the Rev. William Lewis at whose instigation
St. David's and St. Mark's were built. The Reverend Lewis first came to the Rhondda
in 1869 at the age of 33 and remained until his death in 1922. When he first
came to take charge of the parish of Ystradyfodwg the task before him was a difficult
one. At that time the parish extended from Rhigos in the North, to Ffrwd Amos
brook in Dinas in the South West to the meeting of the two Rhondda Rivers at
Porth in the South East. It also included all the lands on the right bank of
the Rhondda Fach River as well as the small valleys of Cwmparc and Clydach and
reached as far as Gilfach Goch in the West.
For the rapidly expanding population of this parish there
were only four clergymen, two Mission Rooms and two churches.
The two churches being the old parish church of St. John
the Baptist in Ton Pentre and the Church of St. Mary the
Virgin in Treherbert, built by the Bute family in 1868. The
Mission rooms were the schoolroom at Treorchy, which later
became St. Mathew's church, and the schoolroom at Pentre.
Thus the Rev. Lewis set to work endeavouring to build churches wherever the increasing
population settled. The first church he built was an iron building in Ferndale,
at a cost of £620 in 1874, followed by a Mission Room of St. Stephen's
Ystrad in 1876, and in 1878 the Church of St.Andrew, Llwynypia. He then turned
his attention to Ton Pentre and Gelli where the population was expanding due
mainly to the opportunities for work provided by the Maindy and Bwllfa collieries.
The old parish church at Ton Pentre was small and somewhat dilapidated and prone
to flooding from the nearby stream, and thus a new church was deemed necessary.
The Reverend Lewis discussed his needs with
Mr. Crawshay Bailey the major landowner of the area, and
whose support for church building was well documented. Mr.
Bailey agreed to build a new church for the inhabitants of
Ton Pentre and District and also agreed to give the site
for the building and also one for a vicarage, a total of
some three and a half acres. By April 1879 a site above the
village had been chosen and approved and an architect, Mr.
I.B. Fowler of Brecon chosen to draw up the plans. Messrs.
Shepherd of Cardiff were contacted to construct the new church
with an initial contract price of £4,000, but with
the extras such as cost of the land, fences etc. the true
price would be nearer £6,000 or £7,000.
Mr. Crawshay Bailey laid the foundation stone for the church on Thursday June
17th 1880, though by that time construction was already well under way. Mr. Bailey
hired a special train to bring him and his family and friends to Ystrad station
for the ceremony, and ‘ all the people of the district turned out to welcome
him'. His route from the station to the church site was lined with flags, streamers,
and arches of evergreens and flowers. At one o'clock that afternoon a procession
set out for the church from Crawshay Bailey's offices in Ton Pentre. It consisted
of a 200 strong choir, followed by a large number of clergy including the Bishop
of Llandaff, Mr and Mrs. Crawshay Bailey as well as numerous other family members
and guests, which included many of the ‘gentry' of Monmouthshire and Glamorgan.
An estimated 3,000 people witnessed the ceremony itself, and saw Mr Crawshay
Bailey present to the Archdeacon the deeds of title to the lands and building.
Following this Mrs. Bailey laid the memorial stone, in a cavity under which were
placed a large bottle containing newspapers of the day and a number of ‘coins
of the realm'.
The church was opened on October 27th 1881; a license for the use of the building
for Divine worship having been obtained, but the church was not consecrated at
this time. Holy Communion was celebrated at 8 am, morning service at 12 noon,
the preacher being the Archdeacon of Llandaff, and an evening service at 7pm,
the preacher being the Vicar of Llandaff. In 1902 Crawshay Bailey's daughters
installed a brass tablet in the church commemorating his generosity to the church.
The church itself suffered many problems, indeed within a few weeks of it's opening
gales blew off two of the crosses placed on the gables, and by 1900 the building
had become seriously dilapidated with a contemporary report stating; ‘The building
throughout requires repair; the roof is not watertight and consequently the walls
are in a very bad state indeed, while the windows, the floor and the aisles of
the building are also much worn. In addition to this the lighting and heating
arrangements sadly require renovating. The tower also requires immediate attention.'
Repairs were undertaken at a cost of nearly £600 and the church was reopened
in March 1901. As from March 26th 1920 St. David's Ton Pentre became a separate
parish.
The church was demolished in the 1980's and replaced by sheltered accommodation
flats for the elderly named Ty Ddewi.
Ton Pentre Workmen's Hall and Institute
The Institute in Church Road, adjacent to
the Crawshay Bailey Estate Office was officially opened in
September 1895. Prior to its opening a meeting was held at
which Mr. William Jenkins J.P. performed the official opening
and a number of speeches and songs were given. Many of the
speeches applauded the workmen's desire to educate themselves
in their spare time as opposed to spending their time in
the public houses of the area.
The Rhondda Chronicle newspaper
report of the opening of the 'Maindy and Eastern Workmen's
Institute', (as it was then known after two of the local
collieries whose workmen paid for the Institute), gives us
an insight into the formation of such an institution in the
nineteenth century. It describes how prior to the passing of
the Education Act workmen of the District paid for the education
of their children through a system of ‘poundage' whereby a penny was
deducted from every pound they earned. With the introduction
of free education a meeting was held by the workmen of Maindy
and Eastern collieries, whereupon they decided to continue
with the poundage system in order to fund the building of
a workmen's institute. According to the report a site containing
two shops and a number of cottages was purchased for £1,200
and the buildings demolished to make way for the institute,
plans were drawn up by Abel Richards and the building erected
by Alban Richards. The original hall consisted of a ground
floor with a news room, refreshment room and caretakers room
and a first floor library and committee room whilst in the
attic were two bedrooms and storerooms.
With the success of the Institute it was decided to
expand the original premises and thus in 1904 a workmen's
hall attached to the Institute was opened. Mrs. Jenkins
of Ystradfechan performed the opening ceremony and the
key to the hall was presented to her by the daughter of
the architect Jacob Rees. By 1908 the trustees had begun
to rent the hall out to a private company for the showing
of ‘animated pictures ‘or
early silent movies. Very quickly the committee and trustees
of the hall realised the profits that could be made from
this enterprise and saw it as ‘their duty that Institute
members reaped the rewards'. As such they started to show
moving pictures themselves, using the profits gained to set
up a relief fund to 'alleviate the distress of sick and disabled
workmen'.
The Reading Rooms
The cinema was converted in 1931 with the installation
of a ‘talkie' machine enabling it to show talking pictures,
developments such as ‘Cinemascope' and stereophonic sound
were also pioneered in the Rhondda at the Hall. The Institute
and Hall suffered in the 1940's with the closure of the
local mines and the subsequent dwindling of revenue from
miners' contributions. Changing it's name to the Ton Pentre
Workmen's Hall and Institute it continued to show films
until 1971 whereupon it changed its usage to a bingo hall.
This itself closed in 1989, leaving the Hall derelict until
in 1991 when it was reopened as a cinema under the new
name of ‘The Phoenix'.
