The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20120303040054/http://www.pontypriddtowncouncil.org.uk/server.php?id=history-of-pontypridd
Memorial to Evan and James James. The Iconic Old Bridge, Built in 1756

History of Pontypridd

The Welsh National Anthem

Evan James

Hen Wlad fy Nhadau was composed in Pontypridd in 1856 by Evan James, who wrote the words, and his son James James, who wrote the music.

Evan James was born in Caerphilly in 1809. He and his family lived at several places in the Rhymney valley before moving to Pontypridd in 1847. The town was growing, and Evan took a lease on a small woollen factory in Mill Street. He was already quite well known locally as a poet, and his son James became a harpist and publican.

James James

The well known story about the composition of Hen Wlad fy Nhadau tells how the tune came to James James while he was walking along the bank of the river Rhondda, and he asked his father to compose some suitable patriotic verses. However another story from the American branch of the family helps us understand what Evan James was thinking about as he wrote his lines of poetry. Two of his brothers had emigrated to the United States and done well. One of them had written to Evan proposing that he should take the rest of the family over. Evan therefore wrote his verses to explain why he chose to stay in his own country which has dear to him.

His verses are a hymn to the survival of a small nation against the odds.

Hen Wlad fy Nhadau was not written as a national anthem, but it soon became known at the National Eisteddfod, and it was through being sung at the Eisteddfod that it became popular. By the time Evan James died in 1878 his song had become our anthem, not because any government body said so, but because the people of Wales wanted it to be.

A Breton version of Hen Wlad fy Nhadau was adopted as the anthem of Brittany in 1904; and it has also been translated into Cornish.


The Old Bridge

When William Edwards completed his bridge in 1756 it soon became famous, both because of the story of its construction and the unprecedented length of its span.

Edwards was contracted to the Glamorgan County Court in 1751 to build a stone bridge to replace a derelict wooden bridge over the Taff. He built a three-arched bridge, which was soon swept away by a flood. He then made two unsuccessful attempts to span the river with one arch before completing the present bridge in 1756. The story of the perseverance and eventual success of the self-taught stonemason and minister at Groeswen was soon told in prose and verse.

Comparisons were made with other stone bridges, and Edwards's bridge with its 140 feet arch became famous as the first in Europe to exceed the span of the Rialto in Venice.

The bridge attracted the attention of a new generation of landscape artists, and there are paintings, sketches and engravings by many famous artists including Richard Wilson and JMW Turner. The bridge also appears on Swansea and Nantgarw china.

William Edwards went on to build more than 10 other bridges, three of which survive, at Dolauhirion near Llandovery, Tredunnock and Usk.

His masterpiece at Pontypridd is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

Pontypridd Town Council website design and development by Arqtic