Tagged with: south east wales
Posts (59)
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American GIs in Wales
Phil Carradice
During World War Two nearly three million American soldiers and airmen were sent to Britain, most of them arriving in the years 1943 and 1944, prior to the D-Day landings in France. General Dwight Eisenhower arrived in Tenby by train. Wales housed more than its fair share of these exub...
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By train to Wales - and the Ryder Cup
Phil Carradice
Many people travelling to watch this year's Ryder Cup golf matches between the USA and Europe will be coming to Wales for the very first time. Many will be arriving by train and for many that journey will begin at Bristol Temple Meads railway station. Statue of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. ...
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Open Doors at the Winding House, New Tredegar
成人论坛 Wales History
If you are planning to be anywhere near New Tredegar on Saturday 25 September between 12 noon and 3pm, make a note to visit the Winding House museum, and catch their Victorian winding engine in action. The Victorian winding engine was used to raise and lower the cages in the mine shaft at ...
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The oldest golf clubs in Wales
Phil Carradice
As most of us know, this October sees the European golf team take on America as the Ryder Cup comes to the Celtic Manor outside Newport, Wales. Hopefully lots of visitors from "over the pond" will be coming to the country, possibly for the first time, and as well as watching golf they might al...
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Newport Transporter Bridge
Phil Carradice
The transporter bridge in Newport is an iconic symbol, the one structure that any visitor to the town has to see. It is one of only three such bridges in Britain, one of only eight in the whole world.
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The great storm of 1908
Phil Carradice
The Bristol Channel is used to storms. Winter or summer, they come sweeping in from the west, hammering at the coastline and playing havoc with shipping in the western approaches. But no storm was more severe or more dangerous than the great storm of September 1908. The Bristol Channel is a dangerous area of water because of its strong tides The storm began on the afternoon and evening of Monday 31 August, when the wind strengthened, the barometer fell and torrential rain squalls began to hit the coast. By morning of 1 September the gale had increased to hurricane proportions, with winds reaching upwards of 80 and even 90 miles an hour. All day the storm raged; the winds only finally died away on the Wednesday morning. What they left in their wake was a trail of destruction and disaster that stretched right along the coast of south Wales, from Pembrokeshire in the west to Newport and Gwent in the east. At places like the steelworks in Port Talbot huge cranes had been toppled as if they were made from a child's building blocks, while trees were uprooted and roofs ripped off the tops of buildings all across the country. Roads were flooded or blocked by fallen debris while the main railway between Cardiff and Swansea closed because of trees across the line. Huge hailstones battered at the windows of houses along the coast and enormous flashes of lightning lit up the sky. Terrified farm animals ran for shelter and nobody moved outside their homes unless it was an essential journey. As might be expected, however, it was at sea that the most dangerous problems occurred. With waves of nearly 60 feet many captains wisely decided to remain in port but for those on voyage when the storm broke there was little option but to brave the elements and trust to fortune. The Helwick lightship, moored out in the entrance to the Channel, was so badly damaged by the waves that her crew was forced to radio for help. The Tenby lifeboat carried out a courageous rescue, the lifeboat men rowing for over six hours to bring the stranded sailors to shore. The barque Verajean, running up the Channel before the storm, was caught and driven ashore onto the rocks of Rhoose Point. Luckily the crew all managed to escape and the unlucky sailing ship lay on the sand and shingle for many weeks, dismasted and abandoned, a sudden and unusual tourist attraction for the Vale of Glamorgan. A more serious disaster took place on the sands near Margam when the Amazon was also driven ashore. Captain Garrick had tried to ride out the gale, anchored off the Mumbles headland, but at 6am on 1 September the Amazon's cables parted and the ship was driven eastwards. At 8am she was thrown up, bow first, onto Margam Sands. Pounded by the waves, the stricken vessel swung sideways on to the storm. Several men tried to swim ashore but most of them were immediately lost in the huge seas. When the Port Talbot Lifesaving Company arrived on the scene only two men were left alive on the ship. Twenty-one of the crew were drowned, including Captain Garrick and five young apprentices. There were just eight survivors. When the storm finally died on the morning of Wednesday 2 September, it was time to count the cost. Luckily there had been no fatalities on land but damage to houses and industrial plants amounted to a sum well in excess of 拢200,000. These days that figure would be in the millions. Dozens of small boats had been tossed up onto shore by the waves and many people had been cut and injured by falling slates and trees. The Great Storm of 1908 was one of the worst natural disasters to hit the south Wales coast. Small wonder people, when witnessing such fury, would thank their stars they were safe on land and whisper to themselves "God help sailors on a night like this." Feel free to comment! If you want to have your say, on this or any other 成人论坛 blog, you will need to sign in to your 成人论坛 iD account. If you don't have a 成人论坛 iD account, you can register here - it'll allow you to contribute to a range of 成人论坛 sites and services using a single login. Need some assistance? Read about 成人论坛 iD, or get some help with registering.
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Memories of Six Bells: Doug Reynolds
成人论坛 Wales History
Tonight on 成人论坛 Two Wales, Angel of the Valleys follows artist Sebastien Boyesen and his frenzied race against time to create the Six Bells memorial statue in time for the official remembrance ceremony that took place on 28 June 2010. As well as following the tensions surrounding the building...
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Angel of the Valleys: memories of the Six Bells colliery disaster
成人论坛 Wales History
The Six Bells colliery mining explosion in Abertillery was one of worst post-war coal mining disasters in UK history. On the morning of 28 June 1960 an underground gas and coal dust explosion claimed the lives of 45 local men. Iris Evans was a senior nursing officer at the time. Now livin...
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AD 410 Romans Go Home: Caerleon
成人论坛 Wales History
As part of the UK-wide AD 410 project, archaeologists at Caerleon, Newport are offering the public a chance to help with a dig at the Roman fort site. Once home to the Second Augustan Legion, Caerleon was one of only three permanent legionary fortresses in Britain. The dig is part of the AD...
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Ebbw Vale, the steel town of Wales
Phil Carradice
This summer, from July 31 until August 7, the town of Ebbw Vale is due to play host to the National Eisteddfod of Wales. It is not the first time Ebbw Vale has been chosen to accommodate a major social or cultural event. This is the second time that Ebbw Vale has hosted the National Eisteddfod of Wales and in 1992 it hosted the Garden Festival, a celebration that attracted thousands of visitors over a short six-month period. This year will undoubtedly see many more visitors to a town that has a proud and distinguished history. Ebbw Vale is now renowned as a mining and steel-producing town but, for many years, this was a rural and rather desolate spot. Sitting at the head of the Ebbw Fawr River, the town now has a population of over 25,000 but back in the 13th century, when the Norman invaders under William de Braose first came to the area, there was no town at all, just scattered houses and the occasional farmstead dotting the hills and valley sides. This part of what is now the county borough of Blaenau Gwent was, for many years after the Norman conquest, an area inhabited only by sheep farmers who also, sometimes, turned their hands to the rearing of mountain ponies. And so it continued until the end of the eighteenth century. Then came coal and iron! Coalmines arrived first but when the Ebbw Vale Iron Works was founded in 1778 a town soon began to spring up around the engineering plant. By the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 the town's population had increased from the recorded figure of under 150 in 1881 to about 1200 - and all in the period of just thirty years. As might be expected with such a population boom, conditions in the town - sometimes known as Pen-y-Cae in these early days - were primitive and crude. It was not until the second half of the 19th century, after the working day was shortened and the hated "truck" shops were abolished, that things began to improve. The Chartist movement had a strong base in the area and, later, trade unionism was equally as important to the iron and steel workers. Ebbw Vale even boasted its own Board of Health, a local precursor to the National Health Service, which was set up in the 1850s. It was a system that miner and future town MP Nye Bevan saw in operation and undoubtedly used as a blue print when he came to found Britain's Health Service in 1946. In 1866, following national trends and demands, the Ebbw Vale Iron Company began producing steel. The company name was changed to the Ebbw Vale Steel, Iron and Coal Company and, under the relatively benign direction of men like Abraham Darby and Thomas Brown, began to develop and grow at a phenomenal rate. The company managed to survive the Depression of the 1930s and, in the years after the Second World War, passed out of private ownership and was absorbed into the British Steel Corporation. However, following the destruction of the mining industry in the 1990s, the writing was already on the wall for Ebbw Vale - as with much of Britain's industrial heritage - and the steelworks closed in July 2002. The steel works may have gone but history and legends about the town and works live on. It is said that 40,000 bricks from an engineering plant at Beaufort, a bare mile to the north of Ebbw Vale, were used to construct the Empire State Building in New York while it is a known fact that both the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Stockton and Darlington railway lines were built using steel from the Ebbw Vale works. The National Eisteddfod of Wales has a noble and fascinating history. That history can only be extended when the Eisteddfod returns to Ebbw Vale in the summer of 2010. The Pavillion, at the National Eisteddfod 1958, held in Ebbw Vale The concert precession at the National Eisteddfod 1958 in Ebbw Vale The Chairing of the Bard at the National Eisteddfod of Wales Feel free to comment! If you want to have your say, on this or any other 成人论坛 blog, you will need to sign in to your 成人论坛 iD account. If you don't have a 成人论坛 iD account, you can register here - it'll allow you to contribute to a range of 成人论坛 sites and services using a single login. Need some assistance? Read about 成人论坛 iD, or get some help with registering.
