When Lord Nelson was travelling through South Wales in 1802 he called at Thomas Mansel Talbot's Orangery at Margam. Mansel Talbot had completed the Orangery on the site of the partially (at the time) demolished old Margam House by 1793 while in 1800 he'd also erected a Citrus House for the Estate's famous collection of citrus trees. Nelson must have been impressed: he gave the gardener a three shilling tip. I'm sure that saw him through more than a few pints of ale at the Corner Inn at the adjacent old Margam village, though the village itself would also be demolished between 1830 and 1840 when Mansel Talbot's son, CRM Talbot, began the construction of his visionary Gothic Tudor house that we call Margam Castle.
The Grade II listed Citrus House in 2012, just prior to the completion of its renovation.
While all this demolition and building was happening on our doorstep another Talbot, the Irish born Honourable Thomas Talbot (1771 - 1853), who might well be related through some dusty and distant lineage to the Margam Talbots, was building, expanding and defending his own community of Port Talbot on the other side of the Atlantic ocean on the shore of Lake Erie in Ontario, Canada.
In 1803 he landed at the spot he would call Port Talbot and built a log house, followed by a sawmill, a cooper shop, a blacksmith shop, and a poultry house along with a barn and a water mill. Unfortunately, his Port Talbot was destroyed in raids during the war of 1812 between the United States of America and the United Kingdom and its North American allies. It was never rebuilt but this plaque commemorates its existence as one of the National Historic Sites of Canada.
In 1803 he landed at the spot he would call Port Talbot and built a log house, followed by a sawmill, a cooper shop, a blacksmith shop, and a poultry house along with a barn and a water mill. Unfortunately, his Port Talbot was destroyed in raids during the war of 1812 between the United States of America and the United Kingdom and its North American allies. It was never rebuilt but this plaque commemorates its existence as one of the National Historic Sites of Canada.
Two Talbots, two countries, two towns but there's no historical connection between them that I can trace right now. So why am I blogging about it? Curiosity, maybe. A little like we might check on Google or Facebook for people with the same name as ourselves, we can't help but be curious about towns and communities with the same name. Maybe, one day, I might find myself on the shores of Lake Erie and stand in the spot where the people from the vanished Port Talbot briefly settled, lived and worked. That place was the physical manifestation of one man's vision, just as CRM Talbot envisioned the future of Margam and Aberafan, the building of the docks, the expansion of the railway, the town bearing his name that would officially come into existence in 1921. Thomas Talbot's vision did not have similar success but imagine his pride in that first decade of the 19th century: the first settlers' homes built, the first bushels of corn ground at his mill.
Sources:
Wikipedia
www.margamcountrypark.co.uk
www.peoplescollectionwales.co.uk
Sources:
Wikipedia
www.margamcountrypark.co.uk
www.peoplescollectionwales.co.uk
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