The Parish of Ystradyfodwg

by Benjamin Heath Malkin**

In my first excursion, the direction I took from New Bridge [Pontypridd] to Brecknock [Brecon] was through the parish of Ystradyfodwg to Pontnedd Fechan; and I question whether any part of my tour is better furnished with its apology, if an untrodden track may excuse an author for supposing that his observations are of sufficient value to come before the public. I have already mentioned the bridge that crosses the Rhondda Fawr at its confluence with the Taff, close by New Bridge. The scenery from this bridge to the first and only known and frequented waterfall on this river, which is a salmon- leap, and frequently mistaken by strangers for the cascade before described on the Taff, is highly interesting, singular and impressive. The progress of this river, narrow and rapid, is still more turbulent, and more impeded by rocky fragments, than that of the Taff. The vale is very much confined, admitting only a road and a few fields on one side, and on the other, the cliffs rise perpendicularly from the water in all their naked grandeur, but are clothed on the top with some of the choicest and most majestic timber that Glamorgan- shire produces. The union of wildness with luxuriance, and of sublimity with contracted size and space, is here most curiously exemplified. The distance to the water-fall is about two miles. About a quarter of a mile before you arrive at it, there is a very long and tremendously lofty Alpine bridge, constructed with ~ of trees laid together, and supported in a sort of reeling equilibrium by a prop of timber in the middle of the river, without which the rickety contrivance could not abide. It is picturesque in proportion to its rudeness. The fall disappoints those visitors whose admiration is adjusted by measurement, and whose accuracy of computation teaches them that there must in all cases be one third more of the sublime in thirty feet than twenty. But the scene addresses itself with peculiar charms to those who have other inducements than to tell their friends in London, with travelled self-complacency, that they have seen a cascade or a mountain. I have had the pleasure of visiting this spot at three different times; and once when the river was very full of water. The composure and solitude of the place, undisturbed by any thing but the roar of the projected stream and the dashing of the spray; the rocks intruding on the precincts of the flood in massy portions, smoothened by attrition and worn into fantastic shapes; the river placid and shady for a lengthened reach above the fall, but thrown as it were unexpectedly down the steep, collecting itself in dark and profound pools among the fragments, and then driving its impetuous course from the scene of its disturbance; - all these are circumstances and features which aim at our sensibility, more than they command our wonder. When the season suits, the fish-basket, flung across the fall from a pole supported by the rocks, affords a specimen of rustic ingenuity that adds to the pleasures and speculations of the moment.

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The character of the scenery remains the same when you pursue the road beyond the salmon-leap; but the river, instead of rippling over rocks, becomes deep and darkly placid, but transparent. Indeed, a principal beauty of the rivers in this rocky country arises from their perfect clearness, uncontaminated, unless in very heavy floods, by the least tinge of muddy soil or any other fortuitous discolouring. It may be necessary to observe that travellers in any sort of carriage are precluded from adopting this interesting route: for about a mile and a half above the first water-fall, the Rhondda Fawr for a space becomes broad and shallow, over a bed of large, loose stones, and the road on the right bank only leading to some coal-pits close by, the traveller, who wishes to pursue this way towards Ystradyfodwg, is obliged to ford at this place. The almost impassable road then continues on the left side of the river, overhanging it at a considerable height, with opposite scenery precisely of the same description, as what engages the attention in the way to the ford. Yet it is curious to observe that the mere circumstance of changing sides, without any heightened features, gives it all the effect of novelty, and creates for it an increasing interest....

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The traveller has scarcely turned his back on this, before his ears are saluted with the sound of a third fall, at the distance of not more than a quarter of a mile. It altogether differs in character from the other two. It is less beautiful, but larger and more grand. Immediately below it, massy rocks thrust themselves almost across the river, leaving it a very narrow, but deep and clear passage; and the depth of course gives a darkness to the hue of the water that communicates a degree of sublimity to the general tone.

The ascent from this fall is steep and lofty, and after a short space presents a new scene, at the junction of the two rivers, Rhondda Fawr and Rhondda Fach, which by their confluence form a more important stream, whose banks we have hitherto skirted. There is a bridge of a single arch over the Rhondda Fawr, highly ornamental to the distant prospect, which is here of considerable extent. The Rhondda Fawr lies in the parish of Ystradyfodwg, and we shall, with occasional deviations, trace it to its source, through country of uncommon wildness. The Rhondda Fach takes its source in Aberdare, and flows through a district of less romantic character, but very considerable beauty. I have no doubt but that an excursion to Aberdare would be equally interesting in this direction, as in that which it suited my arrangements to adopt. but I had no opportunity of trying the experiment, and here took my leave of the Rhondda Fach. There is here a grove of oaks, remarkable for their height, occupying the side of a declivity, from the road to the river. It may be observed generally that among these mountains, the oak, if it grows at all luxuriantly, is drawn up to an uncommon tallness. From the spot just described, the road turns to the left, up a steep and barren hill, without any thing to interest, till you meet the direct road from Llantrisant through these wilds; on which you turn due north, when the mountain scenery of Ystradyfodwg breaks upon the view. There is here a gate, which marks the entrance of the parish; and the way lies at the foot of a rocky ridge, grand in its elevation, and most whimsical in the eccentricity of its shapes. The almost perpendicular side is clothed nearly to the top, with dwarfish, stunted oaks, scarcely exceeding the size of garden shrubs. The foliage relieves the eye, but the impoverished vegetation of the place detracts little from the repulsive grandeur of the landscape. Towers of lime- stone occasionally start up, which overhang the road, and seem to endanger the traveller; while a pleasing, though not rich valley on the left, softens the general dreariness, and reminds us that there are men, with the habitations and the works of men. The descent down a long hill brings the traveller to a little brook, abounding with fish, which joins the Rhondda Fawr a little way to the eastward; and at a very short distance from the brook, after descending another hill, you cross a bridge over that river, which has disappeared since its junction with the Rhondda Fach; but from this place the sound of it is never lost, though frequently the sight, till you arrive close by its source at the top of the parish, distant about ten miles. Here, how- ever, it ceases to be the leading feature of the prospect. It fertilises the valley with its pure, transparent stream, rolling over loose stones, but is no longer encumbered, yet ennobled, by massy projections, or stately and aspiring cliffs. Hereabouts, and for some miles to come, there is a degree of luxuriance in the valley, infinitely beyond what my entrance on this district led me to expect. The contrast of the meadows, rich and verdant, with mountains the most wild and romantic, surrounding them on every side, is in the highest degree picturesque.

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The next object of interest, for such it is in a proportion equal to that of a palace in a better  inhabited country, is a substantial farmhouse, placed in a most pleasing solitude, as beautifully situated as any thing in the parish. Its name, for it is dignified with a name, is Llwynypia, signifying the magpie's bush. It is occupied by Jane Davies, a widow, but its situation seems little calculated for the feebler exertions of female industry. Though, in truth, the delicacy and supposed corporeal imbecility of the fair sex are little respected in these mountains. The women at least divide the severest labour, and seem, by their hardy, robust constitutions, to triumph over the bleakness of their winters, and the ruggedness of their tolls. On the farm of Llwynypia, standing alone by the road side, there is the tallest and largest oak that ever I have happened to meet with. There is also on the same estate, if you pass through a gate on the left, a little beyond the house, a very beautiful field, with a magnificent grove at the upper end of it, under the shelter of a towering rock. A second bridge over the Rhondda, on the other side of which the road winds to the left furnishes a most interesting point of view, embracing the country just traversed on the one part, and on the other the wider grandeur of what remains to be explored. I had met with but one person of whom I could ask a question since my entrance into the parish;, and then only through the medium of my attendant, whose services as an interpreter were not to be disregarded. My ears, therefore, were not unpleasingly assailed with a shout, which I found to have proceeded from a few people, with most powerful lungs, who were exulting over the lifeless remains of three or four snakes they had just killed. Soon afterwards I heard another clamour, seeming to resent the imputation of solitude, from some labourers at work in the woods. Such sudden salutations almost startle the wanderer, who can scarcely suppose that so much voice could be collected in the district, deserted as it appears to be by human habitations. The people are, indeed, thinly scattered, as well as miserably poor.. but one would think they were determined to shake the throne of silence, and atone for the rare occurrence of social intercourse, by giving a loose to loud and boisterous loquacity. I have mentioned the miserable accommodations of the peasants in the parish of Aberdare; in Ystradafodwg, wilder, less inhabited, without manufactures, and altogether cut off from the commerce of the world, they are in all these respects still worse, though better than in some parts of Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire; and it is a striking in- stance how little the state of. the animal spirits depends on the p" session of external comforts, where the influences of fashion and competition are excluded, that none of the languor, indifference, and stupidity, so generally expected among the inhabitants of such regions, is to be found here. Though ignorant and unpolished, they are far from dull; they have enough of boisterous pleasantry, though it is a pleasantry exclusively their own; and however the fastidious stranger may lament what seems to him their misery, I question whether his pity would be justified by their complaints, or rewarded by their gratitude.

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About a mile from the bridge just described, is the church, near the centre of a parish more 'than ten miles in length. I had inquired with some anxiety for the church, taking it for granted that there I should find a village, as at Aberdare; but I only got laughed at by my rustic  informant. who seemed to wonder I should know so little of Ystradyfodwg, as to expect to find a village: and, indeed, how can a man be said to know the world, without knowing Ystradyfodwg? My error was, however, soon rectified, and every house in the parish, with its situation, was enumerated to me in a detail, the length of which was in no danger of burdening my memory. There is only one house within sight of the church, which was formerly a sort of inn; but now there is neither resting-place nor refreshment for man or horse in a fatiguing, though in general far from dreary space of about thirty miles, from New Bridge to Pontnedd Fechan. The church is one of the most miserable in its structure, and most neglected in its preservation, of all that have come within my knowledge in travelling through the mountainous parts of South Wales. The churchyard, unlike the gay absurdity of Aberdare, is wild and overgrown, little occupied by the dead, and little tended by the living. Nettles and thistles supply the place of those flowers with which the more refined inhabitants of the cultivated vales adorn the last dwellings of their departed friends. Yet even here, all was not silent or solitary: the drowsy hum of mountain scholars, twanging their guttural accents to their Cambrian pedagogue in the church porch, informs us that ignorance does not reign supreme and unrivalled, where knowledge would appear to be least producible, and most difficult of attainment. These children, numerous as they were, must many of them have come from great distances for their instruction; and the attendance on divine service, if indeed it is much attended, must be highly inconvenient; for the church, though centrically situated with respect to the local extent of the parish, is nearly at the extremity of the inhabited part. After you pass the church, the fields and meadows of the vale are found to be narrower and less fertile: the rocks and hills gradually close in, becoming bolder and more fantastical in their appearances, while the sides of many are clothed with an apparently inexhaustible opulence of wood. The continual water-courses, down those that are naked, break the uniformity of the perspective with their undulating lines, and assist in communicating a characteristic interest, to what may not improperly be termed the Alps of Glamorganshire. The bottom is much encumbered with brushwood, through which the Rhondda Fawr takes its course, sometimes visible, and sometimes concealed; the sides are formed of a rocky chain, as has been de- scribed, alternately bare and woody; and the front of this narrowing dell is filled up by a single cliff, high, broad to the top, and as it were regularly and architecturally placed, appearing as much the result of design, as those on the sides seem to indicate the fortuitous vagaries of sportive nature. The height of this mountain seems much greater than it is, from its rising abruptly from the level ground, unencumbered by hillocks at its foot, the perpendicular nearly unbroken from the summit to the river that passes at its base. The mountain cattle, which find their way from the other side, grazing on its brow, add greatly to the general effect. By one of those mistakes, which may be deemed fortunate by the traveller who wishes to see as much as possible of a country, I took the road which seemed the best, and forded the river in front of this mountain, crossing to the left side. At the distance of more than a mile, among the most romantic scenery, a narrow brook precipitates itself from one of the highest mountains, and finds its way to the Rhondda Fawr below. My visit to Ystradafodwg was in the early part of the summer, when the rains had not long ceased; but this and similar beauties must be nearly lost in a dry season. It was long since I had met with any trace of habitation, not since I quitted the church, but there was a solitary cottage at the foot of this cascade, and the master was at home. He informed my servant in Welsh, that instead of passing in front of the before-mentioned cliff, and crossing the river, we should have pursued a scarcely perceptible track up another mountain on the right; and that the path we were now upon would only carry us a few hundred yards further, and then desert us. We therefore traced back our steps, and before we began our ascent, fortunately met with some cottagers milking, from whom we derived a very seasonable refreshment, after travelling all day without any opportunity of procuring more substantial sustenance. I should not. have introduced our taking a draught of milk by way of an anecdote, had it not been for the purpose of illustrating the disinterested character and simple manner of these mountaineer- s, who could not help testifying their surprise at my offering a reward for what they so willingly spared; and it was only by transferring it to the children that its acceptance could be reconciled with their hospitable feelings.

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The path up the mountain, which is the highest in Glamorganshire, is winding and difficult; it crosses two torrents near the top, which demand considerable care from the inexperienced traveller; and from the mountain opposite the Rhondda Fawr tumbles, though not in an uninterrupted fall; distinguished from the other cascades of the district by glittering through the woods that overhang its course, the only ensign of vegetation within ken; this view alone well repays the labour of the journey to those who affect the grander scenes of nature. On gaining the summit, the freshness of the breeze, the extensive view of the mountain valley, the reach of the Rhondda Fawr on the opposite height, seen to its very source, with its projection down the crag, all bring to the mind the best descriptions of Alpine scenery, though on an inferior scale.