Another first for Tredegar?
An early photograph of The Circle featuring the Medical Aid Offices to the left of the clock at the junction with Iron Street. Note the eight iron steps around the clock which were removed in 1933.

Pioneering role:
Distinguished town planner and architect John Hilling has put forward a strong case for another pioneering role that Tredegar might have played in the 19th century - that of the first industrial planned town in Britain.

The Circle:
Mr Hilling also contends that The Circle, which earlier writers have assumed started off as a town square, was planned as a 'circle' all along…

Thanks:
Tredegar Development Trust would like to thank Mr Hilling for permission to reprint this article about early town planning in Tredegar which was published in the Spring 2003 journal of the Gwent Local History Council. The Trust would also like to thank the journal's editor, Tony Hopkins, the Deputy Archivist at Gwent Record Offices.

Britain's first planned industrial town?
The development of Tredegar,
1800-1820

by John B. Hilling

WHEN in 1768 Thomas Morgan of Tredegar Park had a survey made of his enormous estate, the upper reaches of the Sirhowy Valley still exhibited a quiet, pastoral scene (1). Hidden amongst the hills in the north-western corner of Monmouthshire, it was, by and large, a sparsely inhabited landscape of small fields, dotted here and there with an occasional thatched farm or cottage, set against a moorland background with forest remnants. It was rarely visited and, apart from its mineral outcrops, was virtually unknown to outsiders. (2) The few visitors that did make the journey were known to the inhabitants as Y Dynion Dod, 'the strangers who came.' (Footnotes 1 - 2)

By the early years of the 19th century all had changed. Two large ironworks had been erected and a new town, Tredegar, established. The fields around were scarred and despoiled or turned to wasteland while even the sky itself was continually hung with smoke, blotting out the sun and casting a shadow over the tormented landscape. Few, if any, of the original inhabitants were unaffected by the changes and those that remained were soon swamped by the strangers who came to the area, found work and stayed on.

Situated more than 300 metres above sea level, Tredegar was one of a number of industrial towns which grew around ironworks established at the heads of the southern Welsh valleys in the late 18th and early 19th centuries (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Map showing location of early iron industry towns in southern Wales.
Note: only towns with ironworks based on coke-fuelled furnaces
established between 1759 and 1802 are shown

 

 

 

 

 

Founded in 1800 Tredegar quickly developed into one of the premier towns of the Valleys and as early as 1819 The Cyclopaedia noted that 'a new town was laid out and begun at Tredegar Iron Works.'(3) While the other valley towns grew haphazardly with no obvious plan in mind, Tredegar appears to have developed in its early days according to a clearly thought out plan. Indeed, one of the most remarkable characteristics of Tredegar, even today, is the formal layout of its town centre, based on a circular piazza with streets radiating off it on all four sides.

Later, in 1858, the Classical layout was given a striking (in both senses of the word) focal point with the erection of a tall, cast-iron clock tower in the centre of the circle. Surprisingly little has been written about what, at the time, must have been considered an unusual departure from the normal development of industrial towns. Consequently, Tredegar's place in town planning history has not been acknowledged and even the date of its planned development is shrouded in mystery.

Early industrial towns
To understand the unusual nature of Tredegar's planned development it is necessary first to consider the situation at the time. Iron-making in itself was nothing new in southern Wales for it had been carried on, using charcoal for smelting the ore, since at least the late 16th century. It was, however, a minor industry, based on numerous small blast furnaces and forges hidden away in the valleys, and apart from the denudation of local forests had made little impact.

The earliest reference to iron-making in the Sirhowy Valley itself is to be found in a document dated 1597 at the Public Record Office concerning a certain Bedwellty Furnace.(4) This may well have been the same furnace as Pont Gwaith yr Haearn, some three miles (5 km) south of Tredegar, which continued working until the mid-18th century. With the discovery in 1709 of coke as a fuel for smelting iron all, however, was about to change. The upper ends of the valleys soon became hives of industry as vast new ironworks were erected and thousands of people arrived, attracted by the employment that the works offered. (Footnotes 3 - 4)

New settlements quickly developed around the ironworks erected at Dowlais (1759), Merthyr Tydfil (1765), Blaenafon (1789), Ebbw Vale (1790), Nant-y-glo (1791), Pontypool (c.1796), Rhymney (1800) and Aberdare (1802). At first these settlements tended to be clustered higgledy-piggledy around the new ironworks, with no plan in mind save to build workers' cottages as cheaply and as near to the works as possible; 'these [cottages] were the meanest form of building.'(5) Contrasting with these were the ironmasters' grand mansions, also built near the ironworks but away from the potentially rebellious workers. (6) Later, as population grew, further development was squeezed along the sides of valleys - between river, tramroads, slag-heaps and hillsides - into long, parallel rows of terraces, again with no other aim than cheapness and accessibility. Invariably a company shop - free from price-reducing competition - was provided by the works' owners, but for the rest it was left for others to fill the gaps as and when funds became available. Rarely was any account taken of the need for utilities such as schools and places of worship. When shops and other businesses were, eventually, set up they gradually coalesced into commercial cores that followed the main north-south communication routes in ribbon-like lines. (7)

In the Welsh industrial areas the only exception to the rule of bad housing and lack of planning before the 19th century was Morris Town (later known as Morriston), near Swansea. Here, from 1779 onwards, leases were offered to 'artificers and labourers' at the Forest Copperworks and local coal mines to build houses to prescribed plans within a formal street layout.(8) Both the street layout, based on two adjoining, but separate, grids, and the house types were designed by the bridge-builder Rev. William Edwards.(9) A church, also by Edwards, was built in 1787 in a square at the crossing of the two main streets.

Development was slow; in 1815 the population was only 1,100,(10) a covered market was not built until 1827 and even 50 years after commencement the site had still not been fully built up.(11) In fact, despite its pretentious name, Morris Town seems never to have aspired to be more than a planned settlement of detached houses with generous gardens, and consequently it never became a fully-fledged, self-sufficient town. True, there had been other Welsh portents, such as the west coast towns at Aberaeron, Milford and Tremadoc, but these were not industrial towns. The earliest, Milford, was founded in 1790 and laid out to a grid pattern in 1797 by the French architect Jean-Louis Barallier. Tremadoc, the brainchild of W. A. Maddox, was built from rough sketches contained in letters to Maddox' agent from 1805 onwards and never developed beyond a small village.(12) (Footnotes 5 - 12)

Aberaeron, which was developed from 1807 onwards, was based on two open-ended squares, one around the new harbour and the other around a field. In each case these 'new towns' had been established by enthusiastic individuals keen to develop their own estates, either as ports or by land reclamation, and make them serve as outlets for their hinterlands.

Elsewhere in Britain it was much the same story. Planned development was generally limited to 'centres of conspicuous consumption, i.e. the great watering places, together with other holiday resorts and towns which were predominantly residential centres for the wealthier classes; while the more chaotic manifestations of blind growth were characteristic of those towns in whose lives the production or distribution of material goods in large quantities preponderated.'(13) There were, in addition, some pre-planned commercial towns. The earliest of these was Whitehaven, 'the first English example of Renaissance-inspired town-planning outside London.'(14) It had been founded, about 1680, by Sir John Lowther as a coaling port on his estate in Cumberland and was laid out to a regular grid with a space for a church; by about l770 its population had reached around 9,000.(15)

Middlesbrough, County Durham, another a transport town based on coal shipments and with a gridiron layout, was not started until 1830. Planned industrial towns came later still. The most famous of them, Saltaire, Yorkshire, set out in the grand manner and based on the textile industry, was not built until the 1850s.(16)

Scotland, with its long history of new towns - of which 150 were founded between 1745 and 1845 (17) - might be thought more promising territory. But many of the Scottish foundations were transplanted villages and towns - often moved, like Inveraray (1750s) and Fochabers (1790s), simply because the landowner objected to their proximity to his castle or mansion - or new plantations following the Highland clearances. The most obvious Scottish example of caring industrial development was New Lanark, where from 1800 onwards Robert Owen, together with David Dale, provided all the social necessities, including good-standard housing, for an industrial community: New Lanark became justly famous as a model industrial village, but it had not been planned beforehand in any geographical or spatial, let alone formal, sense.

Curiously, a model village for colliery workers and farm labourers based on Owenite principles was established in Wales in 1820, only a few miles down the valley from the already fast-growing Tredegar, at Blackwood. (18) The history of new towns in Ireland followed a similar path to that of Scottish new towns. The first planned 'new towns' were Plantation Towns, heavily fortified villages established during the 17th century by London livery companies in attempts to colonize what was then considered a largely uncivilised country.

Later, a number of model estate villages were constructed by the more go-ahead landowners. There were also numerous schemes to establish more commercially orientated towns, as at Westport (c.1780), and manufacturing centres in the countryside, such as the hopeful-sounding Prosperous (1780).(19) Most, however, were over ambitious and failed. Portlaw was one venture that succeeded, at least initially, but it was not built until 1825 and never developed beyond a village.(20) (Footnotes 13 - 20)

It is clear from above survey, brief though it is, that while many attempts were made, with varying degrees of success, to found new towns across Britain and Ireland in the century or so before 1800, few had been concerned with industry or manufacturing and none of these, save one or two industrial villages, had been planned in a systematic way.

Early development of Tredegar
Although we know that the Tredegar Ironworks were founded in 1800, we cannot be sure when exactly development of the accompanying town commenced, and even less sure when any plan for the controlled development of the town was drawn up. Construction of new houses may have begun at the same time as the ironworks, or very soon afterwards. Initially, housing was probably laid out with no particular ground-plan in mind, but followed existing tracks and tramroads or filled in vacant plots, as happened elsewhere. Soon, however, there could be no doubt but that a town was being carefully laid out along predetermined lines.

An examination of two unpublished maps in the National Library of Wales together with early drafts of the first Ordnance Survey maps of the area will help to throw some light on the way the new town developed. The earliest map of the area is the estate map referred to earlier and based on surveys carried out in 1768. The second unpublished map is a 'Plan of Tredegar Village' which, though carefully drawn, is not dated' (21) The map was clearly made before 1829 when Capel Penuel (shown on its original site on the map) was rebuilt on a new site, and was probably drawn before 1820.

At the beginning of 1800 the landscape that was to become the townscape of Tredegar remained recognisably the same as that shown on the 1768 estate map (Figure 2).(22) The future Bedwellty Park was still a series of small fields, the site of Georgetown still a forest and the river ran, as it always had done, a winding, unregulated, course down the valley. The few roads were little more than tracks that followed irregular routes to connect with ridgeway tracks along the high ground between each valley. Only one bridge (Pont Sirhowy) crossed the river in the upper part of the valley and near this a small Nonconformist meeting house (Capel Siloh) had been erected by the Baptists in 1762. North of the old bridge a former course of the river had left a raised terrace near the west bank. It was here that excavations commenced in 1800 for the new Tredegar Ironworks, and foundations laid for its three furnaces just below the escarpment.

An earlier ironworks, known as the Sirhowy Ironworks, had already been built by four London businessmen a mile to the north in 1778. These works were sold to Rev. Matthew Monkhouse and Richard Fothergill in 1794 who then installed a steam engine and erected a second furnace.

The Tredegar Ironworks, named after the Tredegar Park estate, were constructed by the same men on land leased from the estate in 1800.(23) A key feature in the development of the Tredegar Ironworks, however, was the inclusion of Samuel Homfray (1763-1822) of Penydarren - who, fortuitously, had recently married the daughter of Sir Charles Morgan of Tredegar Park (24) - in the management team.

Although, in the early years, the two ironworks were closely linked by management ties and economics - the Tredegar Ironworks having been spawned, as it were, by the Sirhowy Ironworks, the townships that grew up around them were quite separate from each other. By 1802 two of the Tredegar furnaces had been completed and put into blast. Svedenstierna, who visited the works in early 1803, wrote 'probably this works ...can in a short time become one of the principal, if not the premier works in England (sic) ...the cost of the entire plant was estimated at one hundred thousand pounds sterling.' (25) (Footnotes 21 - 25)

Figure 2: Map showing theTredegar area in 1768, before development commenced. Copied from parts of maps nos. LV,LVI and LVII in An Exact Survey of the Freehold Estate of Tredegar, Volume 4.

Note: scale has been reduced to 1:10,000.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An important new tramroad link between the two ironworks and the port at Newport was built between 1802 and 1805. This, the Sirhowy Tramroad, had originally been proposed by Samuel Homfray who, with his partners, obtained an Act of Parliament for its construction at an estimated cost of £50,000.(26) The tramroad was twenty-three miles in length - the longest in Britain at the time - and included a road sufficiently wide to allow carts to pass.

By 1806 two more furnaces had been erected at the ironworks, so that with a total of four furnaces it was now larger than the Sirhowy Ironworks and began to vie with the well established works at Blaenafon, Dowlais and Merthyr Tydfil. Initially, it was possible to construct the Tredegar Ironworks using labour and materials brought down from Sirhowy. (27)

It was not, therefore, quite so urgent to establish living quarters for the workforce as might have been the case in an entirely new set-up. Temporary barrack-like huts were, no doubt, erected for extra workers brought in from outside. In addition, small groups of workers' cottages had been hurriedly erected near the lane leading to the bridge and elsewhere. There does not appear to have been any kind of organised pattern in the development or layout of these buildings. Their planning, if any, seems to have been nothing more than opportunistic building ventures on waste land alongside existing tracks and tramroads.

Fothergill, the manager of the Tredegar Ironworks, continued to live in a house opposite the Sirhowy Ironworks. He may, however, have intended moving nearer the new ironworks for about this time a curious round house enclosed within battlemented walls was apparently erected by Fothergill just outside the southern corner of the Tredegar Ironworks. (28) In fact, the house was never occupied by Fothergill, but by the ironworks' weigher, and so came to be known later as both 'The Old Castle' and 'Fothergill's Folly'.(29) Whatever its intended use, the house does not appear to have been sited with any scheme in mind except closeness to the works.

Housing development continued in a sporadic and seemingly haphazard manner without any overall plan. Thus, rows of houses were built at both ends of the works yard (1803/5) and at other work-related sites such as Quarry Row, Limekiln Row and Carpenter's Yard (1803/5) and, no doubt, at many other places in between. In 1807/8 an apparently isolated block of houses was built alongside the tramroad at the bottom end of what was to become Morgan Street and, about the same time, a long, isolated terrace of dwellings, River Row, was erected on the opposite side of the river not far from the old Pont Sirhowy.(30)

Meanwhile, a house near the river had been converted into a Company Shop, and the Castle Inn, Miners' Arms and Tredegar Arms erected. The first new chapel, Capel Siloh, had been built, along with a communal graveyard, in 1806 in Bridge Lane.(31)
(Footnotes 26 - 31)

The Birth of a New Town
Within a few years there was a radical change in the way the town developed. During the second decade of the 19th century systematic developments took place which not only altered the appearance of the town but also established the formal, axial layout which still exists today, nearly two hundred years later. Before 1809 there had been no sign of any kind of preconceived layout, but after that date all the evidence indicates that the core of the town was being built in a deliberate way to conform to a predetermined plan in order to achieve certain aims. What those aims were we shall probably never know, for there does not appear to have been any altruistic motive behind them as in the case of, say, Morriston. Be that as it may, by the middle of the second decade Tredegar was more densely developed than Morriston, had twice as many inhabitants and boasted three chapels, a market hall, a company shop and several private shops.

Tredegar's own historians have been surprisingly dismissive and unenthusiastic about the idea of the town being planned according to specific principles of design. Powell does not consider the subject at all, preferring to describe individual events and buildings chronologically as they occurred or were built.(32) Jones categorically states that 'no deliberate planning occurred at any time, the position and line of each street merely conforming to a few previously established features.'(33) Scandrett, the most receptive to the notion of planning, suggests that 'some town planning was undertaken when the new Tredegar Iron Works were being set up' and that Homfray 'set out the cottages and other buildings of the area in a grid pattern as far as the contours would allow.'

Scandrett also makes the point, though perhaps with tongue in cheek, that 'the plans (it is said) were drawn by a young man who later emigrated to the U.S.A. and was concerned in the planning of parts of New York.'(34)

Few others have commented on the development, but the geographer Carter, when discussing industrial towns in Wales, wrote 'at Tredegar... an attempt was made to adopt some form of planning and this rare feature is worthy of note. This was planning at its most elementary level being merely the adoption of a geometric form in the disposition of the houses. No adaptation to site was considered and the considerable gradients of the streets were a marked disadvantage.'(35)

Nevertheless, the actual siting of the new town was clearly not fortuitous. A more obvious site for building a new town would have been one further north, on the comparatively flat land near the Bryn Oer Level between the Tredegar Ironworks and the Sirhowy Ironworks and next to the Abergavenny / Merthyr Tydfil turnpike road which, although at that time still under construction, would eventually give direct access to the largest town in Wales (Merthyr) as well as to the English markets.(36)
(Footnotes 32 - 36)

Instead, the new town was built on a sloping site immediately south-west of the Tredegar Ironworks, protected from industrial smoke by the prevailing winds blowing in a north-easterly direction. The planned development of a new town at the Tredegar Iron Works appears to fall within a period between 1809 and 1818. Although Powell refers to some building activity in 1809 the earliest definite date we have for a building erected according to the new road layout is 1810 when Capel Ebeneser, the Welsh Wesleyan chapel, was erected in North Lane.

1818 is significant as being the year when management links between the Tredegar Ironworks and the Sirhowy Ironworks ceased. During the period under discussion the population of the town almost doubled from about 1600 to more than three thousand inhabitants and a fifth furnace was built while production of iron soared from 4,500 tons in 1805 to 16,385 tons in 1823.(37)

The earliest 19th century map of the area is a 2in to 1 mile Ordnance Survey drawing, dated 1813 (Figure 3).(38) The map is crudely drawn with deceptively orientated roads and misleadingly wide streets, and at first sight seems to make little sense for the street pattern appears to be unrelated to the town's later layout. Although some known buildings - particularly the three chapels - can be made out, it is not clear how accurate or precise the depiction of buildings was intended to be.

Nevertheless, two features stand out as being intrinsically related to the new town's development and the future mansion and park (Bedwellty Park) of the ironworks' manager; these are the rudimentary grid of three parallel streets immediately south of the ironworks and a curving new road west of the town which looks remarkably like a modern by-pass.

Examining first the 'rudimentary grid', it is possible to see a long, straight street in the middle that seems intended as Morgan Street, the town's primary axis. However, closer examination reveals that it is actually North Lane and East Lane (39) - a narrow and subsidiary street - the telltale signs being the junction at the southern end near the Sirhowy Tramroad and the position of Capel Ebeneser. The lane to the west was known as South Lane (40) and was also a minor street.

Clearly, Morgan Street itself had not been constructed in 1813. Neither was there, at that time, any connection between the three parallel streets and the road going north to the Sirhowy Ironworks, their way being blocked by another tramroad and the Scoury stream.

Apart from the pre-industrial Bridge Lane, none of the streets making up the new town were earlier than 1809 according to Powell's chronology of the town. In that year Powell mentions North Lane as being under construction. Both the Company Shop and the Market House were erected in 1811.(41)

Significantly, the Market House had been built at the expense of Homfray; it was fronted by three arches and comprised 'a two storey building some sixty or seventy feet long', the lower floor of which housed the market.(42) What we appear to be seeing on the 1813 O.S. drawing are, in fact, the embryonic beginnings of a new town. (Footnotes 37 - 42)

While some features of the final layout are present on the drawing, others, such as the main axial street, the circular market place at the junction of the two axes and the entrance to Bedwellty Park, are not. Yet sufficient space had been left between East/North Lane and South Lane - surely all of them too narrow to have ever been intended as primary streets - to allow insertion of a wider main street at a later date. Obviously, some thought had already been given to the town's design and layout by 1813, if not before!

Turning now to the 'by-pass', it is clear (at least, it is when comparing the route with later and more accurate maps) that the central part (Park Row) of the new road follows the line of a road shown on the 1768 estate map. The southern (Stable Lane) and northern (Chapel Street) sections of the new road had no precedents and were, presumably, added to provide some kind of through route to connect with the Sirhowy Ironworks and the turnpike road then under construction. But what was the reason for constructing such a new road when it would clearly have been shorter, less steep, more direct and cheaper to continue the long, straight street through the town?

One benefit of the new road was the securement of a large area of undeveloped land between it and the Sirhowy Tramroad - land, moreover, suitable for either controlled development (such as extension to the town) or for some private, protected use. Either way, the construction of a road so neatly by-passing the new town does suggest that this was not a fortuitous occurrence but was part of a deliberate scheme to leave space for a specific use, in this case a private park away from the smoke and contamination of the ironworks. Indeed, the new town's particular form of development may well have been related to an early intention to establish a house and park for the work's manager. Later the park would be integrated into the town layout by continuing the main axis, Morgan Street, as a driveway through the park up to the front of Bedwellty House. This development, however, must have taken place after 1813 for the earliest O.S. drawing shows neither Morgan Street nor Bedwellty House.

Figure 3: Map showing Tredegar about 1813 Copied from 2in to 1 mile Ordnance Survey drawing marked Sheet 194... Date of Bill 1813. Note: scale has been enlarged to 1:10,000

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Information relating to the early days of Bedwellty House is confusing to say the least and firm facts are hard to come by despite numerous assertions by earlier writers. Their suggestions, ranging from an 18th century building to one constructed in 1809, need not detain us here. Suffice to say that the house's omission from both the 1768 estate map and the 1813 O.S. drawing is clear evidence for a later construction date. Coincidentally, 1813 was the year that Samuel Homfray left the Penydarren Iron Company in Merthyr Tydfil in order to concentrate his energies on developing the Tredegar Ironworks. According to Taylor, Homfray, 'while supervising both Tredegar and Penydarren ...continued to live at Penydarren Place [House] until 1813.'(43)

1813 also the year when Homfray became High Sheriff of Monmouthshire, indicating his keen interest in the county. It seems not unlikely that the shrewd and perceptive Samuel Homfray senior had seen the possibilities of a park and fine residence for himself or his son early on and so made the necessary arrangements to ensure that these could be carried out at an appropriate time. With this scenario in mind, we might conjecture that Homfray actually bought the land, with a view to laying out a future park, at the very beginning as part of his joint deals with Sir Charles Morgan and his other partners.

The next map to be examined is the 'Plan of Tredegar Village' of about 1820 (in the National Library of Wales) and referred to earlier. When this is redrawn (Figure 4) to a similar scale as the other maps, we can see immediately the changes that had taken place during the ensuing six or seven years.

The main difference is the insertion of a broad new road and a circular market place (known as 'The Circle') between East/North Lane and South Lane, resulting in a very formal layout. The basis of the layout is a large, circular space bisected along both axes by two roads. The main axis, Morgan Street, was 13.71m (45 feet) wide, while the minor axis, Iron Street and Market Street, was 9.14m (30 feet) wide. The 'Plan' shows plot boundaries and also notes where plots were currently vacant. The origin of the plan is unknown, but, assuming that it was drawn up for the landowners, it probably shows the extent of development in the new town at the date when it was surveyed. If this is the case then Morgan Street must have been at an early stage of its development for, apart from the three inns around The Circle and two blocks at the northern end, no other plots are shown along the primary axis.

The minor streets on either side of Morgan Street are more fully developed, confirming the proposition that they were constructed before Morgan Street. One Classical feature stood out in the planned layout and that was the circular piazza or public space at the crossing of the two main streets.

Earlier writers have assumed that the 'circle' started off as a 'square'. Powell states categorically that 'the present circle was originally formed, or at least appeared, as a square.'(44) There is, however, no firm evidence to show that it was ever a square; rather the opposite. For a start, neither square nor circle are shown on the 1813 O.S. drawing. On the other hand, the 'Plan of Tredegar Village' clearly depicts a circular space, marked 'Market', at the crossing. The 'Plan' shows three inns around The Circle - one at each corner of the cross streets. Interestingly, the main facade of each inn follows the curve of the circle. This suggests, as do the radiating plot boundaries (which still survive), that a circular market space was an early part of the scheme of things.

Nevertheless, Powell states that 'in 1817, four houses only were erected of those which at present form the circle, viz., the Tredegar Arms, Market House, Cambrian, and the Black Prince ...it will be obvious at a glance that these four houses nearly formed a square ...'(45) It is of course just possible (but unlikely) that some of the above buildings were originally built with straight fronts and then rebuilt a few years later with curved fronts aligned to a circle, but, bearing in mind the fact that Powell was writing many years after the event, it seems more probable that he was trying to find some explanation for an unusual situation than that he was actually recording known facts.
(Footnotes 43 - 45)

Figure 4: Map showing Tredegar before 1820. Copied from A Plan of Tredegar Village, Bedwellty. (National Library of Wales Map Collection no 935). Note: scale has been reduced to 1:10,000

 

 

 

 

 

 

Curiously, the 'Plan of Tredegar Village' makes no reference to Bedwellty Park or House. In fact, the three parallel streets are depicted continuing southwards across the area where the park should be. Either the park had not been laid out or the map - maker was not interested in this part of the town. The non-inclusion of the park and house might even suggest that there was still an element of uncertainty regarding the town's final layout. Powell, however, states unequivocally that in 1817, after Homfray's son, also named Samuel, had been appointed manager of the Tredegar Works, 'Bedwellty House was reconstructed and enlarged as a residence for the future manager and partner.'(46) By 1826, when the second Ordnance Survey draft map (Figure 5) (47) was drawn, the planned town had already been completed and both Bedwellty House and its park had become very evident.

The 1826 O.S. draft map shows a fourth chapel, Capel Saron, in a carefully orientated position at the head of Market Street, the western arm of the cross axis. The chapel was aligned exactly on the centre line of Market Street, with the front facade of the chapel at right angles to it, forming a stop-end to the vista just as the entrance to the ironworks must have formed a stop- end at the opposite and lower end of the cross axis. As Capel Saron was erected in 1819, (48) the formal layout of the new town must have been completed by that date. The roughly oval-shaped Bedwellty Park occupied all the remaining land (10.5 hectares) between the 'by-pass' and the Sirhowy Tramroad and was equal in extent to the new town itself. According to the map the park had already been laid out with paths and trees, suggesting a certain degree of maturity. The main drive continues the line of Morgan Street, providing a continuous vista up to The Circle or through the park to a smaller circular space in front of the house.

Bedwellty House itself - in simplified Classical style influenced by John Nash's Regency architecture, and not unlike Homfray's earlier Penydarren House - was built in two stages. The earlier phase was built to a square plan with a symmetrical main front incorporating an entrance porch leading into a central hall. This may be the 1817 house referred to by Powell. Later, a wing (now the assembly hall) was added at the northern end, a second entrance porch added on the east side and the whole building refaced. There is also evidence that the original stairs to the basement was abandoned in order to rebuild the main stairs to a new design. (49) In all probability these alterations were carried out at the same time as the park was enclosed in 1826 and may account for Bradney's misleading statement that 'a house called Bedwellty House was erected by Mr Samuel Homfray [ie, Junior] about the year 1825 as his residence.'(50) (Footnotes 46 - 50)

Figure 5: Map showing Tredegar in 1826. Copied from 2in to 1 mile Ordnance Survey drawing marked New Plan No. 31 (Tredegar Iron Works August 1826. Note: scale has been enlarged to 1: 10,000.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The end of any attempt at formal planning in the new town seems to have coincided, more or less, with the cessation of the links between the Tredegar Ironworks and the Sirhowy Ironworks in 1818. This unexpected situation was brought about by the inability of the existing Sirhowy management to renew their lease on suitable terms. It seemed that the Sirhowy management were being unfairly treated when their lease ran out and the site was seized by Harfords of Ebbw Vale, a rival company in the next valley. (51) But the Harfords had, in fact, previously bought (in 1802) the Sirhowy land from its original owners, the de Burgh estate, and were therefore quite within their rights.

For the Sirhowy management, however, It was a disaster. Fothergill and Monkhouse in Sirhowy had apparently planned to 'bring the older establishment into a closer relationship with Tredegar, possibly with Homfray in partnership.' (52) Instead, on finding that he had been out-manoeuvred, Fothergill ripped up the rails connecting the two ironworks and removed the trams and machinery from the Sirhowy Ironworks. The Harfords countered with legal proceedings, which they won, and ringed the Sirhowy Ironworks with boundary stones marked 'S - 1818'.

After this, 'the three Tredegar ironmasters appear to have lost all their zeal for further managerial activity,' and retired from the scene. (53) To add salt to the wound, Messrs Harfords & Co served notice in March 1818, soon after the above events, 'to repair the old road, from the Iron Bridge Tredegar Works to Pont y Cove [Ebbw Vale].' and offered instead to build a new road for the parish, on 'a line ...more convenient to the Publick at large' from Waun y Pound (near Sirhowy) to Ebbw Vale.(54)

The old bridge (Pont Sirhowy) at the end of Bridge Lane had already been taken down and replaced, at least temporarily, by the iron bridge referred to.(55) The iron bridge had been built some way upstream, opposite the ironworks (56), and it is difficult, nearly two hundred years later, to understand the reason for this location or why Bridge Lane should have been left without a bridge. (57) It is just conceivable that this too had something to do with the planned town: possibly an intention to build a new bridge at some stage linked directly to Iron Street or to Morgan Street. (Footnotes 51 - 57)

In addition to the Sirhowy Ironworks calamity there was the question of the ground lease. Originally the Tredegar Estate Lease of 1800 had been intended to last 99 years. A long-running dispute with the Monmouthshire Canal Company over rights to provide a tramway to the ironworks and interference by the Lord Chancellor in Sir Charles Morgan's Estate Bill meant that the original lease had to be rescinded in favour of one for 21 years. Although an agreement was later reached whereby the 21 year lease could be successively renewed up to the full term of 99 years, it depended 'upon mutual confidence between Homfray and his in-laws.' (58)

In 1818 only three years were left of the original lease and, bearing in mind the fierce competition from Ebbw Vale, further development of the new town may have seemed a risk too far for the Tredegar Ironworks' owners. Buildings still continued to be erected in the town centre after 1818 and streets were, of course, laid out elsewhere. None of these, however, appeared to be part of any preconceived plan and it was not until after 1826 that the awkwardly placed building at the upper end of Morgan Street was removed, so opening up a through route to the north.

The Man behind the New Town
Apart from the rumour mentioned earlier, there is nothing to indicate the identity of the person responsible for drawing up the layout of the new town. As to the person behind the development there can be little doubt that this was Samuel Homfray senior as all the evidence, although circumstantial, points in that direction. Born in 1763, Samuel Homfray 'like many of his family exhibited a rather restless nature.' (59) He was keenly interested in industrial technology and was invariably at the leading edge of its development. (Footnotes 58 - 59)

By 1796 he had become sole manager of the Penydarren Ironworks, Merthyr Tydfil, after quarrelling with his elder brother Jeremiah over the running of the company and his lavish spending at Penydarren House, where (according to Jeremiah) Samuel laid out 'our money in whatever way he pleases to think ...say in Peach Houses, Fishponds, Mortgages, Turnpikes.' (60)

He was one of the promoters of the Glamorganshire Canal between Merthyr and Cardiff, (61) discovered a method of improving the faulty of iron bar, (62) and, in 1804, employed Trevithick to build a steam locomotive to use on the Penydarren Tramroad - the world's first steam locomotive to haul a load on rails. (63)

At Tredegar Homfray was equally keen to be at the forefront: he was the man behind the Sirhowy Tram Road in 1802, and was an early advocate of coal extraction for sale independently of the needs of the iron industry, celebrating his first contract to deliver 'best coal' in 1817 by sending a decorated convoy of twelve fully laden, specially made trucks down to the docks at Newport 'to the astonishment of the large and interested crowd collected together to witness the curiosity.' (64) Thus there can be little question as to Homfray's abilities or of his enthusiasm for things new.

Similarly, there can be little doubt of his determination to be in the lead or to make a splash. He was also a believer in free-trade, as we know from his attacks on the Corn Laws during his time as member of parliament for Staffordshire, 1818-20. (65) Clearly, Samuel Homfray senior was just the kind of person who might get involved in the novelty of building a brave new town in a harsh environment.

But what was the raison d'etre behind the new town and why was it deliberately planned, while other industrial towns of the period appeared to just grow like Topsy? The reason behind the town was primarily as a means of accommodating the workforce. It would also, of course, increase the site's value, as was noted by Sir Charles Morgan during the course of the Estate Bill seeking powers to grant leases of the Tredegar estate. In a letter to his solicitor Edward Bray, Sir Charles wrote, 'I had also taken into my view Benefits which would accrue to them [ie, remainders and reversioners] in consequence of the Lease, by the improvement of other parts of the estate. ..[of] roads. ..[by] the increase in population.' (66) (Footnotes 60 -66)

As far as town planning was concerned, it may well have been that Homfray considered a properly laid-out new town to be a useful way of concentrating his workforce near the ironworks, as well as attracting attention and thus enticing labour there during times of stiff competition for manpower.

Homfray may well have also intended that Tredegar should be a marketing centre for the Heads of the Valleys with a wide hinterland. Perhaps this was why he provided both a market hall and a large company shop, thus ensuring competition. By the 1820s there were nearly twenty shops in Tredegar (67) and soon the town was to become noted for its shops. (68) By 1830 Tredegar also had a daily coach service to Newport to connect with the steam packet to and from Bristol. (69) It seems to have been the first of the Monmouthshire valley towns to be so connected, illustrating again its pre-eminence amongst valley towns east of Merthyr.

Conclusion
At the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century, new industrial towns developed apace, particularly, as we have seen, in southern Wales. By the early years of the 19th century nine new towns had emerged at the heads of the Glamorgan and Monmouthshire valleys alone. With so much activity going on, one might have expected someone to have shown some interest in the environmental conditions of the countless numbers of workers attracted to these Welsh valleys. The reality was that such interest was rare and, for the most part, concerned only with minor improvements or an occasional model village.

Elsewhere the situation was much the same: the only interest in new town planning being found in plantation towns, holiday resorts and transport towns. Early industrial towns were rarely designed in a grand or dignified manner. Apart from one notable exception there does appear to have been much desire in Britain to plan and develop new industrial or manufacturing towns along formal, well-proportioned lines until Saltaire was built in the 1850s.

The exception that broke the rule was, of course, Tredegar. The planned development of Tredegar commenced, as far as one can tell, about 1809 and was completed (in its original form) by 1820. This makes it, as far as this author is aware, the earliest example of a planned industrial town in Britain and, therefore, one of the earliest in the world. Commercially, the planned development of Tredegar was a runaway success for, as can be seen from the 1839 tithe map, the core of the planned town had become heavily built up with shops, etc., in complete contrast to the limited development at neighbouring valley towns of similar date such as Ebbw Vale and Rhymney.

Tredegar's existing street pattern remains almost exactly as it was when first laid out in the period up to 1820 and, consequently, is first-hand evidence of the town's unique place in the history of urban planning. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Tredegar's buildings, which, with two notable exceptions, appear to have been completely rebuilt in later years.

The exceptions are Bedwellty House, which is substantially the same building as that built between 1817 and 1825, and the old Company Shop in Shop Row, dating from 1811. (70) Planned new towns were usually brought about either by altruistic idealism or for some economic purpose or, more often than not, a combination of both. In the case of Tredegar it is not at all clear what the reasons were behind the venture.
(Footnotes 67 -70)

While, on one hand, Homfray philanthropically provided a market hall, there were, on the other hand, no overt attempts to instill moral attitudes in the workers or to dissuade them from drinking. Evidently, Homfray was not a moral crusader in the manner of the Nonconformist begetters of other model towns such as David Dale at New Lanark and later, Titus Salt at Saltaire and the Cadburys at Boumeville. True, there was a clear hierarchy of streets in Tredegar's layout, but little attempt seems to have been made to establish any guidelines for the buildings themselves.

Nevertheless, the main street provided an unequivocal and dignified approach from north of the town down to Bedwellty House - a grand entry, in fact, while the new town itself formed a cordon sanitaire, screening the manager's house from the sight, smoke and sounds of the ironworks.

Perhaps, when all is said and done, Homfray simply wanted Tredegar to be a real town - not a mere industrial agglomeration, but a town in which the market forces of commercialism would ensure not only its survival, but also its predominance amongst other Valley communities.

The Author: John Hilling is a retired architect and town planner. He lives in Cardiff. He was born in Abertysswg and spent his childhood in Norfolk before returning to south Wales to live in Tredegar from 1947 to 1956. He is the author of seven books including a number on historic architecture in Wales.

JOHN HILLING'S NOTES: I am grateful to Stephen Hughes and Peter Jones for their helpful comments on early drafts of this paper and for suggesting additional sources of information. All maps have been drawn by the author.

FOOTNOTES:

1. William Morrice, An Exact Survey of the Freehold Estate of Tredegar belonging to the Honourable Thomas Morgan Esquire, Vol. 4 (NLW Map Collection). The frontispiece is dated 1764, but the dates of individual maps vary: map nos. LIII, LV, LVI and LVII covering the Tredegar and Sirhowy areas are, for example, all dated, in coloured (and now faded) ink, 1768. The spelling 'Surrowy' was used for the Sirhowy River on these maps, presumably reflecting the way it was pronounced at that date.

2. Edward Lhwyd had recorded coal working at Bryn Oer, near Bryn Bach Country Park, as far back as 1698. According to Lhwyd's informant 'the coal may ly about ix Fathoms deep and the vein is about 300 yards long. The first two yards is earth, the rest a yellowish rusty iron stone, down to the vein of coal which seems to be about 15 foot deep.' (Parochialia, Part 11,26 [Supplement to Archaeologia Cambrensis, 1910]). What appears to be the same seam of coal is shown on the 1768 Tredegar Estate Map as a 'Fine Coal Cliff'.

3. A. Rees, The Cyclopaedia, Vol. 6 (London, 1819).

4. Oliver Jones, The Early Days of Sirhowy and Tredegar, 23.

5. H. Carter, The Towns of Wales (Cardiff, 1965), 312.

6. At Nant-y-glo the ironmaster Joseph Bailey built, in addition to his Classical-style mansion, two fortified, free-standing circular towers as places of refuge in times of unrest.

7. Carter, Towns of Wales, 314.

8. Stephen Hughes, Copperopolis, Landscapes of the Early Industrial Period in Swansea (Aberystwyth, 2000), 201.

9. B. H. Malkin, The Scenery, Antiquities and Biography of South Wales (London, 1804), 594; Hughes, Copperopolis, 200.

10. Hughes, Copperopolis, 200.

11. Hughes, Copperopolis, 199.

12. E. Beazley, Madocks and the Wonder of Wales (London, 1967), 87-96.

13. W. Ashworth, The Genesis of Modern British Town Planning (London,1954), 16.

14. D. W. Lloyd, The Making of English Towns (London, 1984), 178.

15. Bell, City Fathers, 151.

16. Bell, City Fathers, 254; 'the mills opened in 1853 and virtually all the houses were complete by 1863.'

17. Bell, City Fathers, 231.

18. G. Darley, Villages of Vision (London, 1975), 159.

19. Darley, Villages of Vision, 207.

20. Darley, Villages of Vision, 210-1.

21. A Plan of Tredegar Village, Bedwellty (NLW Map Collection no.935). The plan is drawn at a scale of 75 feet to the inch. It can be roughly dated from the features on the plan which were later removed, eg. the Scoury and bridge over it, as well as by features which had not been constructed and were therefore not shown, such as Capel Saron (1819), Workhouse (c. 1820) and Duke Street (1822).

22. Figures 2, 3, 4, and 5 are drawn to the same scale and cover the same area to facilitate comparison with each other. In each case the original map has been enlarged or reduced to a common scale and then copied, using, as far as possible, similar conventional symbols.

23. The site was leased from Sir Charles Morgan and his son in March, 1800. Furnace Nos. I and 2 were completed in 1801 but not put into blast unti11802. 0. Jones, The Early Days of Sirhowy and Tredegar (Tredegar, 1969), 37-8.

24. Samuel Homfray married Jane, daughter of Sir Charles Morgan and widow of Captain Henry Ball, R.N., in May 1793.

25. Svedenstiernas Tour of Great Britain 1802-3 (Newton Abbot, 1973), 60-1.

26. Samuel Homfray Junior, Origin of the Sirhowy Tram Road, a four page note, dated 21.01.1822; hand-written copy (dated 15.01.1871) in National Library of Wales.

27. Jones, Sirhowy and Tredega1; 38-39.

28. Jones, Sirhowy and Tredega1; 41.

29. Powell's History of Tredega1; 28-9.

30. Powell's History of Tredega1; 28-9, 32.

31. Powells' History of Tredega1; 30; in fact, The Religious Census of 1851, Vol.1: South Wales (Cardiff, 1976), 66, gives the date of the new chapel as 1800, but this must be too early. Capel Siloh replaced the original Baptist chapel on the opposite side of the river.

32. Powell's History of Tredegar gives a chronological account of the town from its beginnings to 1900; written by Evan Powell for the Tredegar Chair Eisteddfod of 1884, it was brought up to date by his sons David and Evan.

33. Jones, Sirhowy and Tredegar; 59.

34. W. Scandrett, Old Tredegar; Vol. One (Newport, 1990), 136.

35. Carter, Towns of Wales, 321-2.

36. The Abergavenny - Merthyr road was built under the Neath Turnpike Road Act of 1795, but not completed until 1811.

37. It is difficult to calculate the exact population as the town did not coincide with the division of Bedwellty parish used in the early censuses. During the fifty years between 1801 and 1851 the population of Tredegar grew by about 8,000, ie, an average of 160 people per year. Assuming a constant rate of growth, the population would have been about 1630 in 1809 and about 3,070 in 1818. These figures do not include people in Llangynidr parish. Figures for iron production are from Ince, South Wales Iron Industry, 135-6.

38. Ordnance Survey drawing marked 'Sheet 194... Date of Bill 1813' (British Library Maps Ref B.4a) was drawn to a scale of 2in to 1 mile as part of the original survey for Sheet 42 of the lin to 1 mile Ordnance Survey map published in the 1832.

39. North Lane and East Lane were later renamed Upper, and Lower Coronation Street respectively.

40. South Lane was later renamed Lower Salisbury Street.

41. Powell's History of Tredegar; 33-4.

42. Jones, Sirhowy and Tredegar; 45; Scandrett, Old Tredegar; Vol. One, 10.

43. Margaret S. Taylor, 'The Penydarren Iron Works, 1784-1859', Glamorgan Historian, Vol.3 (Cowbridge, 1966), 83.

44. Powell's History of Tredegar; 39.

45. Powell's History of Tredegar; 39.

46. Powell's History of Tredegar; 39.

47. Ordnance Survey drawing marked 'New Plan No.31 (Tredegar Iron Works), August 1826', (British Library Maps Ref. B.4a) replaced the 1813 survey as the basis for the 1832 O.S. 1 in to 1 mile map, Sheet 42 SE.

48. Religious Census of 1851, 66. The alignment of Capel Saron is shown on the 1826 O.S. draft map and the 1839 Tithe Map.

49. John Newman, in The Buildings of Wales: Gwent/Monmouthshire (London, 2000), p. 561; refers to a 'date (1825) on a column in the basement.' The so-called column is, in fact, part of a prefabricated cast iron shelf unit and is not a structural part of the building. It may have been inserted at the time alterations to the stairs were being made.

50. Sir Joseph Bradney, A History of Monmouthshire, Vol.5 The Hundred of Newport (Aberystwyth and Cardiff, 1993), 164.

51. Evan Powell refers to a legend, current in the 1880s, that Fothergill was tricked by Harford into believing that there was no competition for the ironworks (Powell's History of Tredegar; 40).

52. Jones, Sirhowy and Tredegar; 47.

53. Jones, Sirhowy and Tredegar; 49.

54. 'Observation taken when Messrs Harfords & Co served ...a notice to repair the old road from the Iron Bridge Tredegar Works. ..28th March, 1818', Gwent Record Office, D43.1049.

55. Evan Powell states that 'the small wooden bridge had been taken down at the time, and another bridge was in course of erection.' Powell's History of Tredegar; 32.

56. Referred to by Probert as 'a break in the river'. See: Wilfred Probert, 'Tredegar in 1839', Gwent Local History No.68 (1990), 36.

57. The 1839 Tithe Map shows the iron bridge directly opposite the ironworks, but Bridge Street was still without its own bridge.

58. M. J. Dowden, 'Land and Industry: Sir Charles Morgan, Samuel Homfray and the Tredegar Lease of 1800,' in The National Library of Wales Journal XXVIII, 34.

59. Ince, South Wales Iron Industry, 80.

60. Taylor, 'The Penydarren Iron Works',77.

61. Merthyr Tydfil Heritage Trust, Merthyr Tydfil and the Glamorganshire Canal (Merthyr Tydfil, 1976), 5.

62. Ince, South Wales Iron Industry, 78

63. Taylor, 'The Penydarren Iron Works', 80-1.

64. Powell's History of Tredegar; 39.

65. Chris Evans, The Labyrinth of Flames (Cardiff, 1993), 135.

66. National Library of Wales, Tredegar Park MSS. 45/34. (Quoted by Dowden, 'Land and Industry', 33).

67. Jones, Sirhowy and Tredegar; 60.

68. '... there was a splendid market at Nantyglo and one at Tredegar, but the latter place was more noted for its shops.' ('Ebbw Vale in the 1840s: Life in the Monmouthshire Hills', in Gwent Local History No.84, 44).

69. The coach arrived at Tredegar Iron Works at 'about ten o'clock morning, and starting about three o'clock afternoon.' (Advertisement in Monmouthshire Merlin, May 8th, 1830).

70. Both Bedwellty House and the Company Shop are listed as buildings of special architectural and historic interest (Grade II). The Company Shop was taken over by the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company as their general office after the company was formed in 1873, and later, in 1907, became the offices of the Whitehead Iron and steel Company.