Methyr tyfild the old industrie

sujet: http://www.visitmerthyr.co.uk/about-merthyr/culture-heritage/

INTRO:

First of all, The Taff Valley was in 1759 sparsely populated but within 25 years four ironworks were established: Dowlais, Plymouth, Cyfathfa and Penydarren. This marked the beginning of ‘industrial Merthyr’ The communities that developed around the ironworks grew to form one large town, Merthyr Tydfil. The first british census (1801) even qualifided Merthyr Tydfil as the largest town in Wales with 7,705 inhabitants. Indeed the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and 19th centuries was largely fuelled by the minerals hidden beneath the hills of South Wales. Thousands of people from across rural Wales, the rest of Britain and further afield flocked to find work in the South Wales Valleys' great iron, steel, copper, tinplate and coal industries and the ports along the Severn Estuary. The life has been gradually structured around the iron industrie.

?) Links with the War (N) : Cyfarthfa ironwork

In the early XIXth century, on account of hostilities between France and Britain the economy took off, involving the ironwork because of the mass production of weapons. Cyfarthfa Ironworks quikly became the largest ironworks in the world.

In 1802, Lord Nelson, or Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount and British flag officer in the Royal Navyor, visited Cyfarthfa Ironworks where cannons were being made. We can imagine that thoses has been used at the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805, where each of the 27 ships boared 80 cannons, it shows how important the production was for the county. Admiral Lord Nelson has been killed at this battle.

The structures were razed shorty after the end of World War I. The site is now part of the Cyfarthfa Heritage Area and is administered by Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council. The impressive remains of Cyfarthfa Ironwork that can still be seen are of six massive blast furnaces and the huge arch which birdged the gap in the bank between them. It is sobering though to consider that these are just a small part of the works that occupied this site.

The Cyfarthfa Leat is an old watercourse, running approximately 1000m from its source on the banks of the Taff Fechan to Cyfarthfa Lake and was originally built to also convey water to the ironworks.

The old Tramway running below the Leat on a shelf hewn from the rock face was built to transport limestone by horse drawn tram from the Gurnos Quarry to the Cyfarthfa Ironworks and it now forms a tree lined avenue which you can follow and from it view the Leat walls above.

( https://penarthramblers.wordpress.com/walk-reports/november-2015/geraint-takes-the-group-on-a-trip-around-vaynor-and-the-taff-fechan-valley-on-1-november-2015/8-cyfarthfa-leat/ :prendre la photo des retraités)

: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvqeob5KoVg#action=share

http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/cyfarthfa_ironworks.htm (toutes les illustrations du 19è sont bien) Il faudrait faire des comparations avant apres (page 13 "Cyfarthfa Ironworks, as depicted by William Pamplin between 1791 and 1800", page 14"Penydarren Ironworks, as depicted by John George Wood in 1811", page 18 "A ruined industrial landscape" tu fais une progression du bail)

; https://cadw.gov.wales/docs/cadw/publications/historicenvironment/150428merthyrurbancharacter-en.pdf

II) Landscape modification : engineering structure that bears witness of this period

On second thoughts, the industrialization transformed a huge part of the Britain landscape into a urban-industrialized lanscape. Merthy Tydfil is niot unique in that respect. Because of the rural to urban migration, the fields of 1750 became in 1850 habitations. Due to the new inventions, animal, manual labours and farms has been replaced by factories (here in Merthy Tydfil mines and iron-steelworks). And railways, locomotives, steamships have succeeded coaches, diligences and the traditional ships. Some elements still today bearing witness of this period in merthyr tydfil.

THE WORLD FIRST LOCOMATIVE : richard trevithick trail

The world's first locomotive-hauleding-a-load railway journey took place on 21 February 1804, when Trevithick's unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren Ironworks, in Merthyr Tydfil. The route is now a nine-mile trail heritage trail which passes through

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