80770

19  

II  

Designated  

01/06/1989  

19/12/2002  

NO 19 Gelli-deg,,,,,,  

19 Gelli-deg  

Merthyr Tydfil  

Cyfarthfa  

 

Gelli-deg  

303445  

206739  

 

Situated to the N of Swansea Road some 200m NW of its roundabout junction with the A470. The site is some 400m W of the site of the Cyfarthfa blast furnaces.  

 

 

Cottage in one of 2 rows of early industrial workers'' housing complete by 1797, and thus, although altered since, among the earliest surviving in the region. The site is some 400m W of the site of the Cyfarthfa blast furnaces, built 1765. Ty Issa farmhouse is mentioned in a lease of 1794 to Anthony Bacon of the ironworks and it was to this house that the cottages were added. Thomas James was paid £298/9/6d (£298.48) for new houses in Gelli-deg in 1797 but this may refer to the second row Nos 23-28 and Nos 15-21 could be earlier. It is suggested that No 15 is the pre-industrial farmhouse, perhaps mid C18 and that 6 industrial cottages were added in 2 stages. No 15 itself may be a composite of a single room cottage to right to which a larger house 2-storey 3-bay farmhouse was added (but the continuous rear stonework does not support this). The farmhouse was later subdivided into 2, the one-bay upper end with entry from the back becoming one cottage (now part of No 16). To this were added 3 one-room 2-storey cottages, now Nos 16 and 17 (No 17 now including No 18), internally of a single-room each floor, perhaps with a partitioned pantry to the rear, marked by small rear opening. Then a further 3 were added, now Nos 19 and 21, as 21 includes No 20, these had 2 small partitioned spaces at the back and thus 2 small rear windows. None of these houses had the typical catslide roofs over outshuts noted in Welsh industrial workers'' housing of the early C19, though the altered row Nos 23-28 did. In 1930 it was said that No 15 had once been a public house.  

The upper row of 3 cottages are painted rendered with imitation slates and have same eaves but higher ridge line than row to right. Nos 19 & 20 (the latter now part of No 21) were a mirrored pair with end stacks and a cottage on the end, No 21, slightly larger, with stack shared with No 20. No 19 shares a stack with No 18. C20 glazing and doors. The mirrored pair 19-20 had doors to inner bays and window each floor to outer bay, but door to No 20 has gone. Widened openings to both floors of No 19. Rear has lean-to.  

Interior not available for inspection. In 1988 Nos 20-21 only were surveyed of the upper row 19-21 and there were oak trusses with collars raised when upper rooms had been ceiled. The trusses were on seating blocks and the roof was thought to have been stone-tiled. Each house had a ground floor plan of kitchen, sleeping-room and pantry and single upper room. There were quarter-turn timber stairs with cupboard beneath and handrail at top in the front corners. The floor joists were cross-axial and the ground floors had flagstones.  

Listed as part of the oldest industrial workers'' housing surviving in the Merthyr area, which includes a range that predates the nearby Cyfarthfa ironworks.