Calon Lan Walk

Gerald Jarvis, local historian and our guide for Calon Lan walk has kindly written an account of our adventure!  He has captured the atmosphere of the day with his descriptive writing and gave Bev and me a sense of history of the area.

This has been illustrated with a series of photographs, courtesy of Garw Valley Heritage Society: http://www.garwheritage.co.uk/wordpress/

Over to you Gerald!

On 2^nd of January 2013 we set out on the Calon Lan walk in a mixture of the Garw valley’s horizontal rain and very low cloud.  We started at Blaengarw Workingmen’s Hall and pressed on to Calon Lan Park itself which is an area carved out of what used to be a Colliery Washery site and Shunting yard. 

As you can see in this photograph, in the not too distant past we would have been standing in the midst of one of the busiest spots in the valley, full of noise and dust! 
 

The picture shows the Dunraven Hotel (now Club Calon Lan) in the mid foreground and the tracks and coal trucks below it.  This location is now transformed into a tranquil area for reflection and memories with the only noise now coming from the Garreg Brook, which due to the weather, was throwing itself down the mountainside into the man-made lake below.   Even the ducks were giving that a wide berth today!

Pausing on our way to admire the sculpture to commemorate Calon Lan and Daniel James we moved on up the hill into Blaengarw’s main shopping street, an area now sadly a shadow of its former self. 





Where once there were busy shops and services now a few hardy souls scrape a living. 

Still standing and apparently thriving, on the corner is the Blaengarw Hotel, still wearing its Christmas decorations but sadly today looking very bedraggled. 

Pressing onward we pass by the houses in Katie St where Daniel James and his family lived and the huge Bethania chapel where he worshipped.  This chapel is now hopefully about to claim a new lease of life as a home for a local builder after many years of neglect and vandalism.

Carrying on past the rows of typical colliery houses which were all built from local stone quarried from the surrounding mountains, all identical in size and shape.  However, there is now allowed that little bit of individualism in the houses with their brightly painted fronts, no longer afraid of the clouds of coal dust from the collieries nearby. 

Down the hill and onto the site of the Ocean Coal Co. and a pithead marker constructed from peculiarly bright orange clay!  On this day and in this weather it stands out very brightly against the wind blown waters of yet another ornamental lake constructed to beautify an area that suffered from major industrial blight in the industrial past.   

 

In this picture you can see a side view of Ocean Colliery, showing the coal tips on the mountain above.

As any form of conversation is  whipped from our mouths by the wind and stamped on by the rain, silence is the order of the day as we trek on up further into this area to yet another lake formed by the  rushing brooks at the head of this valley. Standing next to a whirling, raging and swollen stream the sound is painful to the ears, yet a few steps further on all is silence as we gaze out over the lake.  Walking back we are rewarded by the sight of a Dipper, this bird with its’ distinctive white throat lives by the river bank ‘dipping’ into the streams for its food source of snails etc.  Not today though, I am afraid because the normally placid trickle is throwing itself down the mountain like a ‘thing possessed’.

  Helping one another over the stile we proceed downward now and even the weather lessens slightly to give us an opportunity to chat.

  

It is at this point we are able to see vast areas where coal tip/slag heaps once overshadowed the valley, now removed but still leaving patches of a bright unnatural looking green in places as if the earth does not want us to forget the great weight that was placed upon it so long ago.  

At the bottom of the valley we cross the main road and pass through the ornamental gateway and down to view the pithead marker for the ‘Ballarat’ or Glen Garw Colliery, a simpler monument than the others but made from the same orange clay.

On past the school where Daniel’s daughters would have been taught back in the 1890’s, unchanged in outward appearance since then perhaps?

But if you glance upwards you will see the 21^st century with its P.V. solar panel display helping to reduce the school electricity bill, but not today because of the low cloud. 

Down the wet streets we go to what was the largest hotel in town the Dunraven Hotel or now as it is known as Club Calon Lan. This place has had many names in its time and I am sure I will see a few more yet. It’s only link perhaps with Daniel James is a sad one.

 

It was from Blaengarw Station opposite this hotel that the body of Daniel’s eldest son, William Hopkin James was entrained for burial in Swansea, almost

110 years ago to the day.

I wonder what the weather was like that particular day, I am certain it couldn’t have been more depressing.

 We are nearly at the end of this walk/wade through the upper Garw Valley and some of its history and we get on to the cycle path and head back towards our starting point. Pressing on we enter into the comforting warmth of the Creation Café.  Sitting in its cosy confines and with our clothes steaming gently on our bodies we set about our coffee and biscuits, and discuss our walk in more detail.  For myself it is always a pleasure to tell ‘strangers’ about some of my home town s history. After eliciting firm promises that they will come back another day when the weather improves I wish them well and send them on their way.