The Bridge of Whitchurch
Jul
How a painting from 1843 helped depict scenes of Whitchurch in times gone by. Awen’s Nigel Lewis puts the pieces together
It’s hard to imagine living in Whitchurch two hundred years ago.
Back in the1820s, life was so different. The population of the parish (all of it) was only 972, and the population of Cardiff to the south, an impressive 3,521.
The village of Whitchurch would have been tiny, and whilst St Mary’s Church was there on Old Church Road, there was no Plough Hotel, no shops even. On the common, Ararat Chapel was still a few years away from construction (it was built in 1824), and the Three Elms pub, which would have looked nothing like it does today, would have been the only building of size anywhere. There were probably a few thatched cottages along the main road through the village, but that’s all.
The few roads would have been terrible, simple dusty tracks with lots of water-filled ruts. In winter, there would have been days when the roads were probably impassible.
Even the Merthyr Road, which had become a ‘turnpike’ since 1767, would have been no better. The only traffic would have been local pedestrians, a few working horses, the occasional horse-drawn carriage for the gentry, and farm animals wandering freely.
And just to the south of the village, where Tabernacle Chapel now is, was the humpback bridge over the Whitchurch Brook. This was a stone bridge, with an arch spanning the brook. We have no idea how old the bridge was, but probably a couple of hundred years old even then.
You might wonder how we know there was a bridge, let alone a hump-back bridge? Well, the tithe map of 1841 shows an ‘indication’ of a humped bridge, and there is an oil painting in the collection of Amgueddfa Cymru by an artist called James Baker Pyne, dated 1843, and titled ‘View at Whitchurch’. I’ve studied the image over the past few years and have struggled to convince myself that it was our Whitchurch, after all there are half-a-dozen other villages by the same name around. I’ve included a copy of the painting (courtesy of Amgueddfa Cymru) below for you to study yourself.
We’re told that the artist painted in a very ‘loose’ manner, in the style of JMW Turner; I’ll let you make your own decision on that!
The clincher came when I discovered that there was another painting in the museum collection by the same artist, and this one is called ‘Old St Mary’s Church, Whitchurch’, and it’s definitely our (demolished) St Mary’s. It’s been suggested that this Bath-based artist had been on an art-inspired journey through the area and had chosen to paint two local landmarks.
So, if the humped bridge in the painting is of the village, what are the other buildings in the picture?
The thatched cottages in the distance with the wavey eaves look very much like Maltster’s Row, now Pizzeria Villagio. However, the strange buildings on the left of the painting are much harder to interpret.
It’s only when you analyse the painting carefully that you realise, they’re the old thatched cottages which at one time were located on Brook Road, alongside the stream. I’ve sketched and painted the cottages myself, and I’ve included a copy of my painting at the top of this page for you to see (and compare).
If the bridge was anything like the artist had painted, it must have been a very narrow affair with hardly any room for traffic.
And yet, in 1820, a daily stagecoach service started from Cardiff to Merthyr Tydfil. This stagecoach thundered through the village and over the bridge for the next thirty years. In fact, such was the demand, it became a twice-daily service from 1830!
The journey started from the Rummer Tavern in Duke Street in town, through Whitchurch as far as Pontypridd (back then it was called Navigation), where they stopped and changed horses; and then on to Merthyr. The whole journey took six hours, travelling at the scary speed of 3-4 miles an hour.
I’m sure that there must have been countless mishaps over the years, and the local inns (usually doubling up as blacksmith/farrier) came to the rescue; a very early AA service!
Interestingly, the mail coach, travelling from London to Fishguard, stopped enroute at the old Angel Hotel in Cardiff, and in his book ‘Discovering Cardiff’s Past’, Dennis Morgan describes the scene:
The mail coach always attracted a large crowd at the Angel, eager to hear the latest gossip from the capital. The coachman, resplendent in his top hat; the horses bedecked in beautiful ribbons and the guard magnificent in his scarlet coat as he blew his gleaming post horn to announce their arrival; all contributed to a colourful spectacle.
The stagecoach through Whitchurch would have been almost as splendid, and I can almost imagine the guard sounding his post horn as they approached the bridge!
The sound of the horses’ hooves on the dusty road, the sweating and snorting of the team, and the shouts of the coachman urging people and beasts to clear the way conjures up an incredible image.
At every turnpike gate (there was one in Tongwynlais), the guard would sound his post horn so that the gate could be opened and to allow the mail ‘free-passage’ along the road. If the gates were not opened in time, the tollgate keeper was liable to a £2 fine.
Sadly, the era of stagecoach travel ended abruptly. The last mail coach from Cardiff to London was in August 1850, just after the Cardiff to London railway opened. The mail simply transferred to the railway.
We’re not told, but I’m sure that the Cardiff to Merthyr service suffered the same fate!
Nigel Lewis is a member of AWEN@thelibrary (awen.cymru@gmail.com)
