In the early 1900s, Cardiff was the biggest coal-exporting port in the entire world. The South Wales area including the Valleys prospered, with jobs in coal mines, ironworks, and tin-plating.
Over the next half-century the industry declined, and the 1980s brought mass closure of coal mines, not just in Wales but throughout the UK. Those areas were crippled by unemployment, leading to reduced socio-economic status, worse health outcomes and, particularly in Wales, an increase in child poverty. But don’t make the mistake of writing them off, as too many people do.
Developing division
When I was a child in the 1980s, my grandfather had market stalls in Pontypridd and Maesteg. My mum remembers driving past picketing miners to get to work there. Over the decades, once-thriving towns were forgotten about, their residents becoming more disenfranchised from the people in power, their discontent sometimes culminating in voting ‘leave’ during the Brexit referendum in 2016.
Those of us working in the NHS then knew that the lie on the big red bus was simply that – a lie. However, people with their own agendas within government and the media created division, making some in ‘white Britain’ believe everything would be fine once immigrants were gone. I think we all know how that worked out, even if some still won’t admit it. But these towns need support, investment, and development more than ever.
It saddens me that many of my city friends, who rarely go into the South Wales Valleys, think they’re backwards places. They’re astounded when I tell them about the beauty of the Valleys, where people have hopes and dreams like the rest of us, but may not have had the opportunities we did in the capital.
If you think people from such places are weak or that the towns are dead and buried, think again! There’s a beating heart there, and they’re fighting back. It’s a pleasure to behold. Let me tell you specifically about four towns: Pontypridd, Treorchy, Maesteg, and Pontypool.
Pontypridd
Pontypridd sits at the junction of the Rhondda and Taff Valleys, where the River Rhondda flows into the Taff. It’s named after the wooden bridges that spanned the Taff, where the stone Old Bridge of 1756 now stands. The town’s history is tied to coal and iron. It was an important transport location, first for the Glamorganshire Canal, then the Taff Vale Railway. Pontypridd is now the headquarters of Transport for Wales Rail.
It has its own rugby club. Ynysangharad War Memorial Park features a bandstand, basketball courts, a lido swimming pool, tennis courts, lawn bowls greens, a cricket pitch, and a visitor’s centre. Impressed yet? The organisers of the National Eisteddfod were, and chose Pontypridd for this year’s festivities.
My grandfather had a shop on Taff Street; big-name shops kept it bustling. However, the opening of Talbot Green Retail Park in Pontyclun meant most big brands – like M&S, Next, and New Look – moved out. With them went considerable footfall; Taff Street is a shadow of what I remember. But among many charity shops and cafes are a surprising number of independent businesses trying to buck the trend, and hoping to capitalise on the Eisteddfod.
I was fortunate to be invited to this year’s Eisteddfod to read my poetry at the Bandstand, as well as for Cant A Mil, one of the main stockists of my books. I also volunteered on my employer’s NHS stand. Despite some rainy days, the atmosphere was incredible. An estimated 160,000 visitors attended. Local enterprises were concerned that the town centre was quiet at first and that locals avoided the area because of the Eisteddfod, but business soon picked up.
It’s encouraging that Pontypridd was seen in a positive light. Only time will tell what legacy remains from Wales’s most iconic cultural event.
Treorchy
Treorchy is a former mining town towards the top of the Rhondda Fawr Valley. Before the industrial era, the land belonged to the Marquess of Bute’s estate. After the coal mines closed, like other Welsh towns Treorchy’s fortunes took a downward turn. But one thing it still had going for it was retail.
Independent shops worked together to turn Treorchy into a shopping destination. The Chamber of Trade has grown from 30 members to 120, including shops, cafes, and pubs. They organise arts festivals and Christmas parades, and were the first town in the Valleys to hold a gay Pride event. This led to Treorchy being voted UK High Street of the Year in the Great British High Street Awards in 2020.
This was no mean feat as it was during the first Covid lockdown. I remember voting for it online myself. I used to work in nearby Treherbert and loved popping into shops such as Wonder Stuff. The Welsh language is very much alive in the area as well, with a local paper.
Treorchy fought back. And won.
Maesteg
Again, little Irram experienced Maesteg when it was still a bustling town like Pontypridd. It still has a wealth of history on display today. Maesteg grew thanks to ironworks opened in the 1820s, then the coal mines. Large factories produced goods ranging from cosmetics to vehicle parts.
All this disappeared over time, yet Maesteg is still alive with the sound of music – literally! There are two male choirs, a women’s choir, and a children’s choir. The Welsh national anthem was first performed in Maesteg, in the vestry of the original Capel Taber, now the Workingmen’s Club.
Grandad’s market stall was in the Town Hall, but alas the market there closed in 2018. The Town Hall is one of many interesting historical buildings in Maesteg. In fact, there are 23 listed buildings and places throughout the town and surrounding area, which begs the question why Bridgend County Borough Council hasn’t introduced a town heritage trail like the popular one in Chepstow.
This could change in 2026, when Maesteg celebrates its bicentenary. It could be the ideal opportunity to put Maesteg back on the map. There are plans for a six-month festival to include an exhibition on the town’s history, a series of talks around Maesteg, a choral festival, a poetry competition, and many other events.
Lloyd the Graffiti has also been hard at work. Following on from his amazing wall art in Caerau, he’s been supported by town councillors to create a beautiful mural of Maesteg places old and new. These include the Ironworks, war memorial, community hospital, Town Hall, pits, and miners memorial, and celebrates Hen Wlad Fy Nhaddau being performed there first. Notable people celebrated include JJ Williams, Vernon Hartshorn, Christopher Williams, and Emily Charlotte Talbot. I’ll have to wax lyrical on these amazing people in another article!
Pontypool
When I worked in community pharmacy in the noughties I’d locum in Pontypool, and remembered it as a depressing town. But I didn’t really explore it – when you’ve been on your feet for nine hours, you just want to go home.
I returned a few years ago on my ‘antiques trail’; I love antiques shops and was working my way through every one in South Wales. I visited Ragamuffin’s Emporium in Pontypool and loved it. I also loved the old building it’s in, a former bank that still has many original features inside. The local family that owns it has created a beautiful vintage tearoom upstairs, and I’m happy to travel the 30 minutes by car from Cardiff just for this. However, Pontypool offers so much more.
It’s an architecturally interesting town, with great buildings from the Victorian and Edwardian eras. At the Torfaen Museum, in the old stable block on the Hanbury estate, you learn how ironworks and tin-plating turned Pontypool from a quiet village into a successful town, beautiful items made from tin-plating being sold all over the world. The factory was opened by John Hanbury II, his family a branch of the landed Hanbury family of Worcestershire. Hanbury House still stands (but is a comprehensive school) within Pontypool Park, where the 1924 National Eisteddfod was held.
In Pontypool, just as I was starting to write my own poetry, I learned of an extraordinary woman whose poems I’ve fallen in love with. Myfanwy Haycock (1913–1963) hailed from Pontnewydd, Pontypool. She had much success with her poetry, winning at several National Eisteddfods (her bardic chair is in Torfaen Museum), but was also an illustrator, journalist, and broadcaster. She joined the BBC in London in 1943; it aired two of her radio plays. She died aged just 50.
The poetry of the Valleys
Over time, Hancock’s work was forgotten. But thanks to her, and a chance meeting with another BBC broadcaster, my world was opened up. I encountered Jenni Crane, the driving force behind the Myfanwy Haycock Trail, in Pontypool’s Italian Gardens. She was promoting the trail, and Hancock’s poetry. In those gardens sits a giant wooden sculpture of Hancock on a wooden book engraved with her poems, marking the start of the trail taking in places from which she drew poetic inspiration.
In collaboration with Pontypool Community Council, Crane created three trails – two, five, and eight miles long – with an accompanying audio poetry app. I look forward to taking the trail leading to a restored folly, the original having been built by the Hanbury family around 1765–1770. It was destroyed in Hancock’s lifetime, but she didn’t live to see it restored. The Return: selected poems of Myfanwy Haycock was published by Parthian Books in 2023 and is available from bookshops and online retailers.
A year after meeting Crane, I published my first poetry collection, Welsh, Asian and Proud. Pontypool, a quiet town, nearly forgotten by the-powers-that-be and originally dismissed by me as a tired town in a deprived county, with wealthy Monmouthshire as its neighbour, changed my life as a writer.
I hope I’ve persuaded you to visit these towns and discover their secrets. If you need more reasons you can stay at the Hanbury Arms Haunted Hotel and Museum, and pop along to the artisan craft market in Pontypool on the first Saturday of each month.
I think the towns I’ve described are great examples of how Wales is often down but never out – we always pick ourselves up and get on with it. Keep Welsh strength and carry on!
