Early and Industrial History
One of the earliest recorded settlements in Ton Pentre is an Iron Age hillfort located at Maindy Camp. Although initially believed to have been from the Bronze Age period, the camp was misidentified due to items from a Bronze Age cairn that were found inside the camp perimeter.
The area on which Ton Pentre now stands was originally the site of a cluster of platform houses or hafodi; small farming buildings, occupied only during the summer months. The site was later settled by a farm and a few cottages, known as 'Y Ton' ('meadow') the site was owned by absentee landlord Crawshay Bailey. To distinguish the area from nearby Tonypandy, it became known as Ton Pentre.
When it became viable to mine anthracite coal in deep shaft pits in the mid-19th century, many pits were sunk in the Rhondda valley, one of which was located in Ton Pentre - The Maindy Colliery. It was the individual collieries that were at the heart of the separate 'villages' that emerged on the valley floor as they were the major employers in the area. At the height of the coal mining industry Ton Pentre was home to a few thousand people living in high density terraced houses that spanned the whole valley.
Read more about this topic: Ton Pentre
Famous quotes containing the words early, industrial and/or history:
“In early times every sort of advantage tends to become a military advantage; such is the best way, then, to keep it alive. But the Jewish advantage never did so; beginning in religion, contrary to a thousand analogies, it remained religious. For that we care for them; from that have issued endless consequences.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“Coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle; and it is the means of transporting itself whithersoever it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta, and with its comfort brings its industrial power.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,—for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)