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NEWSLETTER March 2006
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Museum News We are continuing to move forward with arrangements for the refit of the Museum with several visits by our Museum Designer. We hope to be able to start work in earnest in April. More details from Don or Peggy. Spring Trip No sooner was the Annual Dinner over than Roy Pickford was busy organising our spring trip. This will be on Saturday 6th May when we will travel to Swansea to visit the brand new National Waterfront Museum and Swansea Museum. The coach fare will be £6 per person. There is a restaurant at the Museum, and other food places nearby, so finding somewhere for lunch will not present any difficulty. Please put your names down as quickly as possible at the Museum or contact Roy on 01495 213377. Wanted! School visits are a regular part of the Museum’s programme but we need a tin bath and small items of children’s clothes for the school children to wash on the ‘washday’ sessions. Museum opening times The Museum is open to the public, free of charge: Monday - Thurs 10am - 1pm 2pm - 4pm Friday 10am - 1pm Saturday 10am - 1pm Museum phone number 01495 211140. Visitors and volunteers are always welcome so please call in as often as you like. Details of coffee mornings etc available at the Museum Memberships were due for renewal on 1st January. The annual fee has been kept to just £4 which is excellent value. Please pay our treasurer Bernard Jones at the lecture or send or drop off your subscription at the Museum. Lecture Programme The talk by John Evans last month on Lewis Edmonds of Llanellen was a reminder of the interesting characters in the area. Researching his story involved both luck and rigorous research but the results were fascinating.
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Coffee morning We celebrated St David’s Day a few days early with a coffee morning at the Museum. The Welsh theme was reflected in Bara Brith and Welshcakes to accompany tea and coffee and the whole event proved very popular with one of our biggest ever attendances! The morning raised £140 and so many thanks to those who gave and bought cakes and raffle prizes and tickets. The raffle winners were Joyce Walbyoff, Enid Dean, Jean Colwell and Ada Howells. Fund raising February £353
Diary Dates The lectures are usually held at Abertillery Comprehensive School and start at 7.00pm. Entry is £1 and the public are most welcome.
February Numbers
Contact Names
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| Thomas Frederick Cyril Salt has featured in a few of our recent Newsletters. The following information was provided by Mr Len Adams, one of our Museum Society members, who now lives in the house formerly occupied by the Salt family. Cyril was born in 1893 and attended the County Intermediate School, following which he was articled to Mr W Stewart, Managing Director of Messrs Powells’ Tillery Colliery with whom he served for four years. He volunteered for foreign service on the outbreak of war in August 1914 and joined the 3rd Monmouthshire Regiment. After training at Northampton and Cambridge he went to France in January 1915. He rose quickly to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant in the South Wales Borderers but was unfortunately wounded in action at Neuve Chapelle on 15th March after barely two months on French soil. He died in No.8 Casualty Clearing Station on 3rd April and is buried in Bailleul Cemetery. A comrade wrote “From the time we went to Northampton to the fatal night he and I had been great pals, and during our stay in France we always slept and lived together. When he went away to hospital I was sadly alone, and felt his absence keenly. The evening he was shot his platoon was relieving us in the firing line, and it was within 20 yards of his destination that the blow came. As the men of his platoon were filing by me I heard someone say ‘Cyril is hit,’ and I immediately went out and found him, and in company with three other fellows took him to cover of our trench. The bullet had entered his temple right behind his right eye, and passed through parallel with his forehead. As soon as we got under cover another young fellow and I bandaged his wounds and sent for the ambulance. As the enemy’s fire at this time was very hot and our parapets were in places blown away, the work of our stretcher-bearers was much hindered, and as a consequence they were unable to move Cyril for about two hours. Meanwhile I got coats, etc., and made him as comfortable as possible. At intervals I would talk and try to cheer him up, and it was honestly grand to see the way poor Cyril would try to pull himself together. He was a soldier in every sense of the word. In losing Cyril, not only I but the whole rgt. has sustained a great loss, and his absence caused quite a gloom over us all. With the officers as well as the men he was highly respected, and I don’t think in this world there was a more conscientious and warm-hearted man.” Bailleul was occupied on 14th October 1914 by the 19th Brigade and the 4th Division. It became an important railhead, air depot and hospital centre, with the 2nd, 3rd, 8th, 11th, 53rd, 1st |
Canadian and 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Stations quartered in it for considerable periods. It was a corps headquarters until July 1917, when it was severely bombed and shelled, and after the Battle of Bailleul (13-15 April 1918), it fell into German hands and was not retaken until 30 August 1918. The earliest Commonwealth burials at Bailleul were made at the east end of the communal cemetery and in April 1915, when the space available had been filled, the extension was opened on the east side of the cemetery. The extension was used until April 1918, and again in September, and after the Armistice graves were brought in from the neighbouring battlefields. Bailleul Communal Cemetery contains 610 Commonwealth burials of the First World War; 17 of the graves were destroyed by shell fire and are represented by special memorials. Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension contains 4,403 Commonwealth burials of the First World War; 11 of the graves made in April 1918 were destroyed by shell fire and are represented by special memorials. There are also 17 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War and 154 German burials from both wars. Both the Commonwealth plot in the communal cemetery and the extension were designed by Sir Herbert Baker. Mr Alan Brown The Museum recently received a letter from Mr Brown, who lives in Canada, addressed to ‘Abertillery & District Museum, Wales, England’. It arrived safely so maybe the Post office doesn’t do such a bad job. Mr Brown recently lost his wife and wrote to see if we could help to establish whether any of his family, from Abertillery, were still alive. His letter said: I am writing with regard to genealogy. I was born September 25 1926. I would like to know if some of my family is still alive. My father’s name was Baden Powell Brown born 1900, died 1975. My mother was Violet Dowding died 1985. I would love to see if I could get some information I can get. At 1926 onwards my uncle Robert Brown was Under Manager at Six Bells Colliery. My Aunt Flossie Brown was on the Council. My cousin Roy was killed in 1961 Six Bells Colliery. I would love to have a picture of Abertillery. My dear wife Bessie died 7 weeks ago. We had been married 56 years. She died of cancer. If you could send me any information it would be highly appreciated. Yours truly A Brown If you have any information we could pass to Mr Brown, please see Don Bearcroft at the Museum.
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Anthology of Poems Apologies to Gordon Rowlands that we were not, after all, able to launch his Anthology of Poems for our recent coffee morning. We now have the photocopier and a little more expertise in using it and so the book of poems will get a ‘proper’ launch at our next coffee morning, when hopefully Gordon will be able to come along and read some of his compositions. Look out for the date in the April Newsletter or call at the Museum.
Vice Presidents
New Books A Social History
of the Cinema in Wales 1918-1951: Pulpits, Coalpits and Fleapits
by Peter M Mitchell Reservoir Builders
of South Wales: Dam Builders in the Age of Steam
by Harold T Bowtell and Geoffrey Hill
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Grwyne Fawr Reservoir Following on from the new book listed in the previous section, and a winter photo of the dam, it is worth looking back at this amazing engineering feat. Its history is linked with the need for a reliable supply of fresh water in Abertillery to combat the disease spread by infected wells and springs in the nineteenth century. The Western Valleys Sewerage Board laid a 50 mile sewer to Newport in 1894 but a lack of water meant it could not be connected. In the same year the Abertillery Local Board arranged the construction of a reservoir above the lake at Cwtillery to provide a water supply for the public and the colliery. Problems with leaks led the colliery to seek its own supply further upstream, with a more radical solution required to ensure a public water supply for the valley. In 1906 Mr Baldwin Latham, a sanitary and water engineer, reported that the only feasible site was at Grwyne Fawr – some 20 miles away in the heart of the Black Mountains. Work on the construction of the reservoir commenced in 1912 but delays due to the First World War meant that it was not opened until March 1928. As the reservoir was built, so also was the 2 million gallon service reservoir at Cwmtillery and the 1608 yards long Coity Tunnel carrying the 16 inch pipe. The tunnel underwent major repairs in 1957 and 1983. The feed pipe from Grwyne Fawr runs to Llwyn Ddu Reservoir, Abergavenny, Clydach Gorge and Llanelly Hill to emerge near ‘new’ Baentillery Farm and on to its termination at the top reservoir. The water is then pumped back up the valley to the filter beds before going into the public distribution system. Grwyne Fawr reservoir is a popular walking and picnicking destination and after a few years when levels were very low, the reservoir is once more brimming. The peaceful landscape today gives no hint of the bustle and noise which were part and parcel of this major civil engineering project, including the establishment of a complete village for the duration of the construction works with houses, school and hospital. The Cwmtillery valley similarly gives little indication of its industrial past. Step in the historians and local people with an interest in recording our local history for future generations. Our Museum is playing its part in keeping our heritage alive; please continue to give us your support. | |
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ABERTILLERY & DISTRICT MUSEUM
SOCIETY