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Melin Mynach |
The Cd was launched at Gorseinon Library on 21st October 2006 by the Mayor of Gorseinon. The Llanelli Star covered the event. Library staff arranged a display and supplied coffee and biscuits and demonstrations of the Cd were given. Despite heavy rain there was a good turnout. The Cd received favourable comment, and sales were brisk.
Melin Mynach, also known as Melin Monach / Melin Manach / Monks’ Mill, but known always to me as ‘the old monks’ mill’, is a site of historic interest in an area that was once known as Rhydymaerdy, but now known as Gorseinon, in the City and County of Swansea. The history of the mill complex begins when Henry de Villiers died without heirs, and he bequeathed the newly formed Cwrt-y-Carnau manor, to the Cistercian Monks of Neath Abbey. The new manor, of Cwrt-y-Carnau, situated on the banks of the Llwchwr Estuary, comprised a farm grange and a small chapel dedicated to St Michael. The Cistercian Order had taken over Neath Abbey in 1147 and sometime later a group of monks settled in an area known as Rhydymaerdy. Rhydymaerdy from the Welsh, Rhyd = ford; dy = house; maerdy = Reeve or Mayor - means the ford by the reeve’s house. These monks from Neath Abbey designed and built a mill at Melin Mynach, which was powered by water from a narrow man-made trench, known as a leat. The leat, which was fed by water from the local streams and the river Lliw, supplied water to the mill pond. The water stored in the mill pond then passed through sluices, which flowed into the wheel pit and powered the water wheel that worked the machinery. Although the monks probably did most of the skilled work themselves, they would probably have had to employ local labour to carryout the unskilled manual work. When the leat was finished it was more than 2½ kilometres (or 1½ miles) long, and it is said that it was the second longest in Wales. Construction of the mill, adjoining buildings and structure would have taken a lot of planning and shows that the monks and their advisors were entrepreneurs in the forefront new technology of the time. The monks had also established a mill at Melin Llan in what is now Penllergaer and during the early part of the 19th century a William Lewis, from Llandyfan Forge near Llandeilo, lived at Melin Llan before moving to Melin Mynach. Before William Lewis and his family lived at Melin Mynach it had been worked as a paper mill by the Selman Family who originated from Kidwelly and also had connections with a similar paper mill at Cadle Mill. William Lewis worked the mill at Rhydymaerdy as a woollen mill until he became involved in the tinplate industry operating the first tinworks in the area with his three sons, David, Thomas and William Rufus Lewis. The family are accredited with making the area of Rhydymaerdy into the thriving township of Gorseinon. This CDROM endeavours to trace the history of the mill, the families who owned or lived in the mill house, and anyone who had any connection with the old monks’ mill. From the time of the Cistercian monks the history investigates how the mill was operated, by whom and how it came to be the centre of Gorseinon. It seeks to investigate those connected with the mill, such as the Selman, Cameron, Lewis, Glasbrook, Ackland and Jones families The latter family, the Joneses were the family who moved into the mill house after the Lewis family had moved out. The Jones family were not, as my father used to say, “just any old Joneses”, they were the Afan Jones family who were descended from John Afan Jones, a former member of the famous Caradog Choir who won the championship twice at the Crystal Palace Choral Competitions of 1872 and 1873 – a fact of which my father was extremely proud. The history of the Jones family is a social history of the 19th and early 20th centuries and covers the industrial revolution when family members moved from an agricultural environment to an industrial environment. It follows the first members to work in the tinplate industry and the last member who transferred from the Grovesend Steel and Tinplate Works to the new technically sophisticated Works at Margam, in the 1950s when the local works in the Gorseinon area were forced to close. The history covers the movement of the families who were desperately looking for employment as the various works closed or laid off workers during the ups and downs of the industrial revolution.
£19.99 + £1.50 p&p (UK) Overseas postage may be slightly more Contact Orders at Llanelli History |
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© W & B Rees & ARTdesigns 2004/2006
Page updated Friday June 23, 2006
