Chapter 5
HISTORY OF ABERDARE VALLEY — 1485–1759.

1. Union of Wales and England.

In 1485, Wales of the Marches was a lawless place where everybody went armed, and murder was rife. Henry VII set up the Star Chamber in 1486 and the Statute of Liveries to strike at the lords marchers and their paid bullies, but it was many years before peace and prosperity came to Wales.

In 1536, Henry VIII decided to deal decisively with Wales and united it to the English crown forever by the Act of Union, and declared that henceforth English law would be the law of the land. Wales was divided up into 12 counties and the marcher lordships were formally abolished.

The Act of Union not only brought more peace to Glamorgan, it also brought other changes. It abolished the old system of inheritance in Wales, where all the land etc., was shared out equally, but introduced the English system of primogeniture. It also enabled the lowland squires to resume their seizure of the land in the upland valleys, acting always in the name of the lords of Glamorgan. Much of the so-called lawlessness in the valleys arose in this struggle for the land. An item from the Glamorgan records shows what type of men some of these landlords could be.

“In 1530 a charge was brought against Morgan Matthews, lord lieutenant of and coroner of Glamorgan, that after the hanging of Thomas Traharen of Aberdare, and Thomas Bach of Rhondda, and the seizure of their goods Matthew had kept them for himself and would not give them to the King’s officers”.

(“Miscellanea of the Exch.,” 11/35. 20‒24 Hen. VIII).

2. Reformation in Aberdare Valley.

When Henry VIII broke with Rome in 1534, he made big changes in the upland areas of Glamorgan. The suppression of the religious houses of Neath, Margam, Penrhys and Llantarnam meant the dispersal of vast flocks of sheep on the great grazing lands of the mountains of the Aberdare valley; the sale of the monastic estates, the ejection of the monks and lay brothers, and the abolition of the ancient shrines and pilgrimages.

The ancient church of St. John in Aberdare and its revenues from the glebe lands around were taken from the abbey of Tewkesbury, where they had been bestowed by the Despensers in 1348, the then lord of Glamorgan, and were given to the new see of Gloucester in 1541 by the king.

3. Edward VI and the Lordship of Glamorgan.

Among the courtiers who surrounded the boy King Edward VI was Sir William Herbert of Cardiff. He persuaded the king to grant him and his heirs forever the royal lordship of Glamorgan, one of the richest and largest estates in the kingdom and destined to be one of the richest prizes of the industrial revolution in mineral royalties and ground rents. The accession of the Herberts, one of the most ruthless of the lowland landlords no doubt accentuated the settlement and enclosure of the grazing lands of the Welsh in the upland valleys of Glamorgan.

4. Aberdare in 1550.

From John Leland’s famous Itinerary in Wales, we get a picture of Aberdare valley.

“... from Castelle Morilys (Merthyr Tydfil) to a place caullid Hirwen Urgan: Where is, as is in the Lordship of Mischen in the paroch of Aberdayer, a great breadth of horsis, and a mile from Hirwen Urgan is the Forest of Lluid Coite, welle woodid in the Lordship of Misken. From Hirwen Urgan onto Rigois lordship 4 miles. In Rigois is sume good corne”. Folio 55.

5. Aberdare Valley from 1603 to 1759.

In 1603 the parishes of the Aberdare valley were three in number: Aberdare parish, Llanwynno parish and Penderyn parish and they covered about 40,000 acres of valley and mountain. Each parish was divided into hamlets, which were territorial divisions and not villages. The church of each parish was roughly in the centre of the parish, and in the case of Aberdare and Llanwynno, were only chapels-of-ease of their parent church at Llantrisant in the vale of Glamorgan, there being insufficient population to warrant the maintenance of a vicar in these lonely upland parishes.

The bell of St. John’s in Aberdare was given in 1637 by William Mathew of Aberaman, Aberdare, the local big landlord. His descendant James Mathew went to Brecon in 1735 to fetch the new parish register. No register exists before that time.

The curate at Aberdare was paid £10 per annum until 1772 when he became a “Perpetual Curate,” but like all his predecessors he had to look after the surrounding parishes.

(“History of the Ancient Parish Church of St. John,” W. Edwards, 1946. p.33).

6. Life of the People in Stuart and Georgian Times.

(a) The Gentry.

The great landlord was the Herbert family, Earl of Pembroke, Lord of Glamorgan, lords of the manor.

The Mathew family of Aberaman estate in lower Aberdare also owned estates in south Glamorgan and Breconshire. William Mathew in 1646 was said to be worth £660 per annum.

There are no records of other gentry extant, though as in other neighbouring valleys records of the gentry exist so there must have been some in the Aberdare valley, but the records have gone with the missing registers.

(b) Enclosure of the Common Land.

Since the Norman Conquest lowland Glamorgan squires in connivance with the Lords of Glamorgan were constantly trying to enclose the great tract of Common land in the Aberdare valley known as Hir-Waun-Wrgan, (The Long Meadow of Wrgan) named after the Welsh prince who had given it to the people of Glamorgan forever, about the year 990 A.D.

On January 26th, 1638, a meeting was held at Aberdare on behalf of the fourth Earl of Pembroke to enquire into the action of Thomas Mathew of Aberaman who had enclosed 100 acres of the common at Aberaman to make a farm. Mathew said that he had obtained permission from the earl’s father to do so. His example was followed by many others and in the next 100 years over 35 farms were enclosed on the Hirwaun.

(c) Free-holders and Small Farmers.

The free-holders and small tenant farmers had their farms and strips for cultivation. They grew oats, rye, barley, wheat and hay. They had orchards and gardens. They had dairy products and the meat of animals and poultry. They hunted wild game. They drank beer, spirits and wine.

Trade was through fairs and market towns. Aberdare had two fairs: on April 19th and 14th November. All transport was by packhorse. Produce was taken to the market towns of coastal South Wales for shipment to Bristol etc.

Cattle, sheep and even geese were driven by professional drovers from Aberdare village across country to Hereford, Gloucester and London. The drovers were the messengers and newsvendors of their times. Thomas Richards, eminent drover, died in 1795, and is buried in the Aberdare parish churchyard.

(d) Aberdare Village.

Aberdare village stood in the centre of the parish near the ancient church of St. John the Baptist (1189). Here were the low houses of the farm labourers, the curate’s house and the smithy and mill. The rivers teemed with fish; game abounded on the hills; the upland hills were covered with grass, bracken and peat; the lower slopes had a heavy growth of deciduous trees among which were pasturelands, hay and corn fields. Here could be seen the whitewashed farm houses of the Werfa, Tir Ergyd, Tir Evan Bach Traws, Hendre Baillie, Fedw Hir, Llwynhelig, Ynysllwyd, Ynyscynon, Tonllwyd and Blaengwawr.

(e) Other People in the Aberdare Valley.

Records in Glamorgan make reference to the trades and professions of other people besides the agricultural population. We read of:— Lawyers, surgeons, apothecary, weavers, smith, cordwainers, cobblers, saddlers, carpenters, masons, innkeepers, bailiffs, pedlars, glaziers, tinkers, turners, butchers, millers, tailors, constables, drovers, shepherds etc.

But, in this beautiful but lonely upland valley of Glamorgan the bulk of the people were farmers right through the 17th and most of the 18th centuries.

(“History of Merthyr Tydfil,” NUT. pp.149–151).