This website is maintained as a window on Pentre and its past. Coal mines and mining in general have been extensively covered on numerous sites and in various books. Here the emphasis is more on the streets and places that catered for the community. So chapels, churches, places of entertainment etc are covered along with events of local interest during the mining era.
If you have any old photos, particularly of long closed shops, pubs and chapels which you would care to share they would be most welcome.
There are many extracts from books or papers of their time. I do not seek to "air brush" history just because it may upset todays readers. You should read everything as if you were there and in the mood of the time and that of it's authors. If you seek to distort or hide the past, however dark you may consider it to be, you will learn no lessons from it and therefore be doomed to make the same mistakes over again.
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE RHONDDA VALLEY.
Morien
It was my fate to come into the world just in time to behold the parish of Ystradyfodwg in its ancient condition. The old parish roads were in the condition in which they had always
been. They had not been designed by a Brunel or any other skilled engineer. Each went down hill and up hill without the designers having, apparently. given a thought to the labour horses would incur
in drawing heavy loads after them. Indeed, there is reason to believe that in those days all articles of merchandise, such as wheat, butter. cheese, eggs, and so forth were sent out of the valley
across the mountains on pack horses. The old inhabitants took a short cut across the mountains to wherever they desired to go. They were not afraid of any type of ascent; nor any descent either. They
had lungs of the strongest, and their ruddy cheeks spoke of pure oxygen, homely fare, and sober lives.
CHANGES to Bus routes 120 & 130 from 23rd July