The ruins of ordinary lives

You come across them at the edges of footpaths, ivy wrapped, tumbled-down, remnants of their former selves, but still they whisper 'home'. And you wonder about the lives begun, shared and ended between the walls that used to stand there, beneath the roofs that kept people safe and warm. 

The ruins above belong to Llan Ton y Groes on Mynydd Brombil, a stone cottage that was occupied until around the late 1940s. To the left, in better condition than the cottage's scrabble of stones, is the sheep dip built by the people who lived and worked here. There couldn't have been a better spot than this, a place of real life stories and events, to launch the first volume of Allen Blethyn's Port Talbot Historical Notes in February 2013.  

You can buy your copy of PTHN at the former Gateway bookshop in Forge Road, soon to be Book Bound, and read Allen's research into a string of cottages and houses that once stretched the length of Cwm Brombil, the homes of farmers, labourers and miners. There was once a mine here, named for the valley, opened c.1780 by the English Copper Company to supply their works at Taibach. It closed in 1880 but you can still see the entrances to the two levels if you know where to look. And Allen does. 

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Sources
Blethyn, Allen, Port Talbot Historical Notes Vol 1 Spring 2013, pp.9-30, privately published, www.historicalporttalbot.com
Lawrence, Ray, The Collieries of the Afan Valley and the Port Talbot Areas, privately published 2008
Evans, Leslie A, The History of Taibach & District, Alun Books, Port Talbot 1982