Llanharan - Foresters move west (General)

by Slowhand-s , Friday, May 27, 2005, 11:46 (7154 days ago) @ Slowhand-s

Llanharan

"This rise in numbers of incomers did not begin with the sinking of pits. It started with the coming of the South Wales Railway in 1850 and continued with the opening of iron mines near Pontyclun and Llanharry.

After 1872 many tin workers also came to live not only in Llanharan village but in "Tin Works Row" near Tylagarw. But when three collieries started to expand to the north and west of Llanharan in the 1880s it was obvious that many more houses were need to accommodate the colliers and their families. Between 1891 and 1901 some 80 new houses were erected and by the turn of the century the expanding village was able to accommodate just over 1000 inhabitants.

Of the incomers many arrived from England, especially from The Forest of Dean, where coal mining was in sharp decline. From 1900 until the Powell Duffryn Colliery closed in 1962 the area westward along the Bridgend Road became the commercial heart of a relatively flourishing mining village that survived even the Depression Years."