Bridgend Floods of 1960

During the first few days of December, 1960, Bridgend was hit by "devastating flooding". Flooding in Bridgend Town Centre was quite a regular occurrence until the erection of the flood barriers. What makes this one different is that on the 4th of December 1960, The River Ogmore burst its banks in a few places. (more information)

Below are a selection of photographs that document the event!

Caroline Street

Elder Street

Dunraven Place

The Cenotaph

Dunraven Place

Dunraven Place

Caroline Street

The Unitarian Chapel: Extracts from Dr. Randall




The sombre and severe building at the foot of Newcastle Hill possesses considerable historical interest. The present chapel is dated 1795, but its predecessor was one of the first Dissenting centres in South Wales and goes back to the origins of the movement. The story begins wit Samuel Jones of Brynllywarch. He has been described as "in many respects the most eminent of all Welsh Nonconformist ministers of the seventeenth century". He was born at Chirk in Denbighshire in 1628, graduated at Oxford in 1650 and became Bursar of Jesus College in 1655. This was the Cromwellian period, and after a Presbyterian ordination at Taunton he was appointed Vicar of Llangynwyd on 4th of May, 1657. There he married Mary, a daughter of Rees Powell of Maesteg, who was Sheriff of Glamorgan in 1654. Under the Act of Uniformity of 1662 he was ejected and retried to Brynllywarch, a substantial farm house in the same parish, probably part of the property of Rees Powell, and he remained there until his death on 7th of September, 1697.

The first Non-Conformist academy in Wales was established at Brynllywarch Farmhouse by the Rev. Samuel Jones.

We catch a glimpse of the formation of a Dissenting congregation at Bridgend in the returns of the licensed places for the public worship of Protestant Dissenters under the Declaration of Indulgence of 1672. Among these were two fro Samuel Jones, classified as a Presbyterian, at Llangynwyd and Coytrehen, and one for Thomas Joseph, an Anabaptist, in his own house at Bridgend. Nothing is known of this Thomas Joseph, but after the death of Samuel Jones we obtain clear evidence. By a lease of 17th of October, 1702, Michael Williams of Bridgend and Hester, his wife, leased to Rees Price of Tylacoch, Bettws, gentleman, Rees Price, and Thomas Lyson of Waterton, Coychurch, gentleman, a cottage and garden at Newcastle for a term of 999 years at a nominal rent.  A memorandum endorsed on the Lease by the Lessees made a declaration of Trust that the property was to be continued, to be a meeting place for dissenting protestants, implying, therefore, that it was so used already. Indeed, it might have been the house of Thomas Joseph. It is conjectured that a permanent chapel was built upon the site about the year 1717 and it was certainly rebuilt in 1795.

The chapel at Bridgend has survived mainly because of its endowments. Rice or Rees Price of Tynton left town chapels a sum of £200 and two houses adjoining the meeting house at Newcastle. His will was dated 16th of December, 1734, and he died on 20th of June, 1739. The provision of the will was effectuated by a deed of Release of 27th April, 1741. The two houses have disappeared and were probably merged in the enlarged chapel in 1795. Then one John Edwin by deed of 10th May, 1742, assigned trustees for the two chapels a yearly rent of £8 secured upon a property called Tir Tom Jenkin in the parish of Baglan. This was ultimately purchased by the owner of the property for £200 in 1860 and the purchase money invested in trustee securities. 

Samuel Price, the son of Rees Price, and one of the original lessees of 1702, also left a legacy of £100 to the chapels. 


Notes: These extracts are taken from a source written and published in 1955. 
Source: Bridgend: The Story of a Market Town: Dr Randall 

The New Market: Extracts from Dr. Randall

Bridgend Market, c.1905!
The earliest records of the town prove that it possessed a regular Saturday market, and two prescriptive fairs on 'Ascension day and St. Leonard's day (6 November). In the middle ages Newcastle church was dedicated to St. Leonard. The market rights were vested in the lord of the manor and they were clearly a substantial asset. The Survey of 1631 gives particulars of the market rights but does not refer to any building. As to the fairs The Cambrian newspaper contains some curious records on the early nineteenth century. In 1809 an announcement was made that a fair would be held on 1st April and thereafter annually on that date; in 1818 that the Bridgend fair was to be held on 23rd May for livestock; and in 1826 that the May fair was to be held on 3rd of May. No other entries appeared, and it is not clear whether these efforts were attempts to alter the dat eif the Ascension Day fair or to establish a new fair. Neither object could be attained for a prescriptive fair, but nothing more seems to have happened.  

From the recitals to the Bridgend Market Act 1836 it appears that the general market was held in the principal streets of Bridgend and Newcastle; but that the market for meat, fish, poultry and provisions was held under a building erected for that purpose by the Earl of Dunraven or his ancestors 'near to the bridge called the Old Bridge'. It was further stated that the market for corn, wool, leather and so forth was held "in a certain market place situated under the public Justices room or hall of the said town or village", also erected by Lord Dunraven or his ancestors. These recitals are distinctly puzzling because they apparently refer to two separate.

The Dunraven map of 1778 is discussed below, but in this matter it does not help in the least. It is most curious that the market hall does not appear in the terrier attached to the map, and it cannot be identified with any certainty upon the  map itself.

There is a reference in The Cambrian of 17th July, 1818, to the election of John Edwards of Rheola as M.P for the county at Bridgend Town Hall, which must refer to the Justices' room; and in the same newspaper of 10th March, 1832, there appeared an advertisement of the sale of the Leicester Arms near 'the Town Hall where the corn, butter and cheese market is held, and within a short distance of the coal Wharfs.' his indicates one building for the sale of corn and provisions, and not two separate buildings for corn and provisions respectively as recites in the Act of 1836.  Yet the promoters of that Act can hardly be accused of ignorance of the facts, but perhaps there was an unnoticed draftsman's error.

The Bridgend Market Act received the royal assent on 30th March, 1836, and it converted a manorial or franchise market into a statutory. After the manner of the Statutes of that time it is exceedingly verbose, and it was not provided with a short title, nor even numbered clauses. The Mother of Parliaments during the greater part of her existence was as untidy an old lady as ever lived.

On 6th of August, 18  36, it is recorded that the new market place was in course of erection; and on 11th March, 1837, formal notice was given that the new market would be opened on Lady Day. On 30th of January, 1839, the new slaughter houses were opened for public use, and on the 18th of April, 1846, the scheme of the Act completed by the opening of the new cattle market.

The name of the old tennis court which had apparently been disused before 1836 is still preserved in the sign of the Tennis Court Inn. There was also a tennis court at Cowbridge now converted into a Cinema.

The provision market was erected on its present site (Caroline Street) and was entirely reconstructed  in 1906. It has served its purpose from that day to this, but now many of the stalls and small shops are open daily and not on Saturdays only. The Slaughter houses and the weigh-bridge have passed into the control of the local authority and have been re-erected on new sites. The cattle market has likewise migrated. It was removed from the streets and established in the angle between Adare and Wyndham Street in the centre of the town., but when this area was taken for building it was moved to the present Bus Station.


Notes: These extracts are taken from a source written and published in 1955. 
Source: Bridgend: The Story of a Market Town: Dr Randall 
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