The Swansea Canal was constructed by the Swansea Canal Company during the years 1794 – 1798. The first section of the canal running from Swansea to Godre’r Graig was opened for navigation in 1796.

When completed the canal was 16 miles long, had 36 locks and 5 aqueducts.

With the opening of the Swansea Valley Railway in 1859 the canal lost much of its commercial trade and in 1873 the Swansea Canal Company sold the canal to the Great Western Railway. The canal continued to carry commercial traffic until 1931.

The works at Ynysmeudwy, on the bank of the Swansea Canal (at Ynysmeudwy Uchaf farm) and some 10 miles north of Swansea and approximately 1 mile from Pontardawe, was originally opened in 1838 on the site of a former grist mill by Michael Williams Snr (1792-1841) to produce firebricks for use in the Morfa Copper Works, Landore, where he was manager. His intention was for youngest son William (1824-1880) to manage it. Ebenezer Edwards, a local builder, was engaged to construct the works. The 99 year lease was signed on 24th June 1841 (it being common in those days to give a period of grace for construction etc).

But, Michael died on 21st December 1841 and eldest son Michael Martyn Williams who inherited his estate took over the running of the works as William, aged just 17, was still a minor. Michael Martyn took out a lease with the Earl of Jersey to extract clay from the Llysnewydd Marsh (now site of the Liberty Stadium) and the works at Ynysmeudwy was named the Llysnewydd Brickworks. In March 1845 William became of age and, with £500 left to him in his father’s will, began to produce earthenwares on the same site but as a separate enterprise named the Ynysmeudwy Pottery, the two concerns operating side by side, William simply adding a few extra buildings and kilns. It was he who constructed Ynysmeudwy House as his private residence. The house later became the Glanafon Country Hotel but was destroyed by fire in 1991 and was eventually demolished.

In 1856, Michael Martyn Williams left for Gloucester. William, another brother Charles and a local businessman, William Henry Forester of Ty Coch, Ynyscedwyn, bought out his share, the Llysnewydd name slowly disappeared and the entire business, bricks and all, then became known as the Ynysmeudwy Pottery. This arrangement continued to 1858 when William left for Swansea leaving Charles solely in charge. But in 1859, the lease was passed to Griffith Lewis and John Morgan (owners of Primrose Colliery) whereupon earthenware production ceased, they concentrating on bricks and terracotta chimney pots etc.

In 1871, William Thomas Holland of the Llanelly Pottery, embroiled in a legal case over a failed brickworks (at Dunvant), sought to reduce the value of his assets and ran his Llanelly enterprise down. As a master stroke of deception, he got his mother Mary Holland (then a publican in Burslem) to take over the Ynysmeudwy lease in her name but on his behalf. He re-lined the kilns and resumed earthenware production at Ynysmeudwy for a swansong of 5 glorious years, it becoming in effect the Llanelly works in exile.

In 1876. the case against him was thrown out and the Ynysmeudwy works lease was promptly sold on to the Ynysmeudwy Tinplate Works which continued to produce bricks and terracotta up to September 1901 when it became the Bryn Tinplate Co. and a completely new building was constructed. In 1932, it was taken over by Baldwins, the works closing for good in 1939.

Llangiwg Church occupies a sheltered site on the side of Barley Hill, 688 feet / 206.4 metres above sea level.  The town of Pontardawe lies about 1.5 kilometres to the south east.  The church is of Celtic origin, named after Ciwg the Confessor, a 6^th Century saint who introduced Christianity into the area between AD 542 and 543.

The first church on the site was probably constructed in the 6^th century but not as we see it today, as churches at that time were built with wattle and daub.  The first stone churches were probably built about four centuries later, following the Norman conquest of Britain.

The church was substantially rebuilt in 1812 but there are visible remains of the Norman building.  The most obvious being the stone tower which dates back to the 13^th century.  Originally it had been much higher but was reduced in height because it was leaning precariously.  The belfry originally had two bells but only one currently survives.

The building was de-consecrated in 2004 and is now Grade 2 Listed.

A Welsh-language label, based in Pontardawe, Cambrian was independent for much of its life but was listed as part of the Decca group of companies from November 1974 until at least 1977. It appears to have issued records from 1967-c.80; its main claim to fame as far as people outside Wales are concerned is that it put out several early Welsh language records by Mary Hopkin, who had a No.1 hit, ‘Those Were The Days’, in 1968, on the Beatles’ Apple label.

Cambrian labels came in several different colours, including black, yellow, red, white and various shades of blue, but the basic design remained much the same. The font used for the ‘logo’ appears to have shrunk in or around 1970, and the text around the circumference got slightly larger at the same time – scans 4 and 5 are the early type. The company sleeve opens at the right-hand side. Numbering was in the CSP-700s for singles and mostly in the CEP-400s for EPs, though the earliest EP I have seen was CEP-399. There were at least a couple of EPs numbered in the CEP-600s; they were undated, but I suspect that they were from late in the company’s life and that the numbers were been taken from the main LP series – SCLP-600 – and given the appropriate prefix.

Much of the company’s output seems to have consisted of Folk or Choral songs, usually in the Welsh language, though as I say there was a certain amount of Country music on the catalogue, and the ‘B’ side of the Keith Gordon single ‘Myfanwy’ (CSP-744) is, surprisingly, Trad Jazz. For a relatively short time there was a subsidiary label to Cambrian, called ‘Glenwood’ (q.v.).

The discography below is somewhat incomplete, but for once it goes back into the ’60s. During the independent years pressing seems to have been done by several firms including Orlake (1), CBS (6) and occasionally Phonodisc, the latter resulting in records which had that company’s large spindle hole (2). Decca-era records were naturally pressed by that company (3, 4). The few Orlake records that I have seen have had rather rough labels with a narrow smooth outer ring.