Family Trees

Saturday 13 September 2008

Nant y Ffrith

I have been researching over the last few days, but I haven't found anything of great, must-write-about interest.

It never ceases to amaze me, though, just how hard our lead and coal mining ancestors worked - not just in the 1870s and 1880s but right up to fairly modern times, or the coming of the family car. The long hours and arduous work were only one aspect of their working days: the walk to and from work was a job in itself.

I was following the lives of some families (including George Belton's family) who lived in Nant-y-Ffrith, Bwlchgwyn. For census purposes, this covers roughly the area from the bridge on Llanarmon Road and follows the Nant-y-Ffrith river through the deep valley right down to the Ffrith itself. These families lived close to Llanarmon Road - so where did they work?

George Belton and his sons were all coal miners, not lead miners, and the coal fields end at approximately 700ft above sea level - roughly by Hurricane House on the Ffrwd or where the old railway line crossed Ruthin Road at the Coedpoeth crossing. I am not aware of any coal mines higher than this so it is likely that they walked, every day, down to Nant y Ffrith, through the valley and either followed the path past the foxstones to the Ffrith or they joined Nant Road or Glascoed Road at some point and made their way to Brymbo.

That is a long walk. In winter, never seeing daylight, frequent frosty or snowy spells, sodden tracks and paths, sometimes iced over, heavy drizzle, thick fog, it must have seemed twice as long, exceedingly dreary and not without dangers. Was there a possibility of transport? It doesn't seem very likely. Most of the cottages in this part of Nant y Ffrith were not much better than hovels. In one census, George Belton, Mary his wife, two adult sons (also coal miners), and a younger son and daughter, all lived in a house with only two rooms inhabited. That's not two rooms plus a scullery or anything else, it is literally two rooms in which to do all the washing, cooking, sitting, eating, dressing and sleeping. And it would have been damp.

The housewife would have worked as hard as her husband, getting the children off to school (if not prevented from attending by inclement weather, illness or being needed at home) and maybe taking the first of the children to school every day - another long walk, this time to Bwlchgwyn village and back, until the oldest children were old enough to escort their younger siblings; trying to keep the bedding dry, the house warm, wash and dry clothes, carry water and do her best to have a hot meal ready for the men on their return from work. For all that they were poor, they were still proud people and, if they adhered to one of the chapels or the church, they would take their places with pride at the Sunday services, mixing with their extended families, visiting, exchanging news.

Nanty-Ffrith seems a very remote place to have lived but, a very small comfort, there were a lot more people living in that area than would be apparent now. The houses were usually very small, occasionally one or two low walls or stones remain, but most have disappeared completely, the ruins overgrown or the stones recycled. Although most of the houses were isolated, they were not isolated by any considerable distance - a young lad could run to a neighbouring house for help and the women and children would have had some opportunity to socialise every few days.

In fact, things hadn't changed all that much in 1951, when I was born (in the relative comfort of the village itself); the cottage did benefit from one cold water tap and some electricity, but otherwise it was only marginally more habitable than the hovels in Nant y Ffrith.

Why did the people put up with these conditions? Why didn't they move? That's a story for another day.