MY TOWN MONDAY - LAND OF MY FATHERS

I'm posting another video this week - I made this several years ago and it's been viewed loads on You Tube. The song is the Welsh national anthem and the photographs were taken by myself. Anyway I hope you enjoy.

For more MTM posts go HERE


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The old church on the hill

This is a My Town Monday post



High up on Myndd Y Lambeth, on a majestic looking mountain that towers over my hometown of Gilfach Goch, there stands the ruins of a Twelfth century Church. The last time the church was used was in the eighteenth century and since then the building as fallen into ruins - many years ago farmers took the stone from the walls to build the dry-stone walls that criss -cross the fields and now there is hardly nothing left of the old structure.

The photographs here were taken one week ago.

The church during the eighteenth century was known as St. Peters' but before that it had another name which is lost to time. It stands in a secluded spot and would have been visited by people from miles around - imagine how pious they must have been to walks miles over the mountains to visit the place of worship.

There are several gravestones with the inscriptions still legible and these all come from the same family - Roberts - the oldest person died at 40 years of age and the youngest was only two months - all these deaths were in the same year so it was probably due to some sort of plague.

There was actually a church on this site in the sixth century which was when, local legend tells, that Arthur was buried in a tomb here. The ancient Welsh ruler had been victorious against the Romans.

I remember many years ago the church grounds were excavated in a dig that was intended to locate King Arthur's tomb - there have been many theories to where the king was actually buried, if indeed he did exist. But the original Arthur legends are indeed Welsh and if the ancient ruler did exist than there is no doubt that he was a Welsh ruler.

I visited the church during the dig and actually saw an exposed grave - they had dug down alongside the grave and exposed a skeleton - what amazed me is that the skeleton was a sepia colour, the bones having been coloured by the red earth over the centuries. I was expecting the bones to be glowing white as they always are in films. It was a pretty unique sight, I tell you.


I often walk these hills with my dog and I love the peace and tranquility surrounding the old chucrh ruins.There are also stunning views and you can see as far as the Bristol Channel

MY TOWN MONDAY - THE GREEN GREEN GRASS OF HOME

This week I wanted to show some of my photography off as well as the beauty of South Wales and so I've made the video below. For more MTM posts head over to Travis' place - all are welcome.

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MY TOWN MONDAY - THE OLD DARK HOUSE

It's actually late Sunday night as I write, but I'm away tomorrow and don't want to miss Travis' My Town Monday meme and so, better early than on time, I plan to take you into childhood nightmares with The Old Dark House.

The house stands on the Mountain above Tonyrefail and has been there forever - I can never remember it looking any different than it does now and when we were kids we used to scare ourselves silly with ghost stories centered around the old dark house.

As you can see from the images nature has long claimed the structure and with no regard for the building skills of man, roots grow through walls, moss clings to bricks that are turning to dust, cobwebs fill the window frames and one particular tree is growing upwards out of what had once been the living room.

The story we were told as kids was that once an old farmer called, Goochey had lived there and one night he had caught his wife with a farm labourer and he had gone berserk. He butchered both wife and lover with an axe and then proceeded to cut up his daughter and several other farm workers. He then hung himself and on dark nights moaning and dreadful blood chilling screams could be heard coming from the old house.

Now as a kid in the late Seventies, during the long summer holidays me and a few mates would camp out. This was perfectly normal for the times and our parents never considered it to be dangerous in any way - everyone did it.
Anyway I was about twelve or thirteen when I took a bet that I would camp alone in the old dark house. The bet had come about because I had boasted, that I didn't believe in ghosts and the dark held no fear.

As so, as had to happen, my mates made me a wager that I wouldn't stay in the old house while they camped in the meadow below.

'No worries.' I said and then privately worried.

As so after dark - I think around midnight - I left my mates and with only my sleeping bag, some matches, a few candles and my swiss army knife, I trudged up the mountain towards the old house. Now the bet was that I should sleep in the house but I couldn't bring myself to enter the sinister structure. And so, figuring no one would know I set up camp in the garden, by the far fence, beneath a tree.

Maybe a hour passed before my imagination brought the ghosts to life and every single night sound, of which there were many, became harbingers of terror. I heard someone moving in the ferns and my heart started beating a jig. I expected Goochey to emerge from the ferns, blood splattered axe in hand.

And then I heard moaning but this was not imagined, nor the wind playing tricks with my nerves - this was real. I think I screamed and then the moans turned to laughter and I went nuts. The boys had snook up on me and where hiding in the ferns, trying, and succeeding, to freak me out.

Suffice to say I ended up sleeping back down in the meadow and the bet was declared void, since them trying to scare me was not in the deal.

Since then I've researched the old house and discovered that there was a murder at the house, though not as gory as the stories. A farmer in the late 1930's shot his wife and then himself and the house has stood empty ever since. No one seems to know who actually owns it.

The pictures here were taken this afternoon and show the old ruins as they stand today.

MY TOWN MONDAY - GILFACH GOCH

For more MY TOWN MONDAY posts head over to Travis's blog.

Gilfach Goch, the name translates as red valley or red river valley, some say, Red Nook. The name comes from the preponderance of red heather that dots the mountain side.

Writer Richard Llewellyn spent long summers in the village with his grandfather and years later based his bestselling novel, How Green was my Valley in a fictional version of the town. The book was filmed by the great John Ford but the Hollywood version of the coal mining town was far from the reality. In the 1970's the BBC filmed the book as a mini series and much of the location work was done in Gilfach Goch.

In the early days the working hours of the coal miners were long and arduous and miners often made it a practice to attend funerals in order to get some paid leave from work. One story is documented in Katie Pritchard's History of Gilfach Goch in which a miner slipping out from work was confronted by his manager.

MANAGER - Where are you gong?
MINER - To a funeral.
MANAGER - Whose funeral?
MINER- Whoever's dead.

Gilfach Goch's William Williams goes West

These days all signs of the coal mining past has gone away and the hills are once again green but if a person looks closely enough the signs are still there of the black past when all the hills were turned into blackened heaps and men toiled long and hard beneath the ground to earn a wage that was barely enough to raise their families.