
The Treforest tinplate works in
Treforest
Treforest ( cy, Trefforest) is a village in the south-east of Pontypridd, in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. It is situated in the Treforest electoral ward, along with the village of Glyntaff (or Glyn-Taf). It is part of the ...
,
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
, operated between the late 18th century and 1939. The six remaining buildings on the site were constructed in the mid 19th century during which time the iron and
tinplate
Tinplate consists of sheets of steel coated with a thin layer of tin to impede rusting. Before the advent of cheap milled steel, the backing metal was wrought iron. While once more widely used, the primary use of tinplate now is the manufacture ...
industries were dominated by
South Wales
South Wales ( cy, De Cymru) is a loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, south Wales extends westwards ...
. These buildings form the best surviving group of tinplate manufacturing buildings in the region and are Grade II*
listed.
History
The tinplate works at Treforest was bought in 1794 by the
ironmaster
An ironmaster is the manager, and usually owner, of a forge or blast furnace for the processing of iron. It is a term mainly associated with the period of the Industrial Revolution, especially in Great Britain.
The ironmaster was usually a larg ...
Richard Crawshay
Richard Crawshay (1739 – 27 June 1810) was a London iron merchant and then South Wales ironmaster; he was one of ten known British millionaires in 1799.
Early life and marriage
Richard Crawshay was born in Normanton in the West Riding ...
, owner the
Cyfarthfa Ironworks
The Cyfarthfa Ironworks were major 18th- and 19th-century ironworks in Cyfarthfa, on the north-western edge of Merthyr Tydfil, in South West Wales.
The beginning
The Cyfarthfa works were begun in 1765 by Anthony Bacon (by then a merchant in ...
at
Merthyr Tydfil
Merthyr Tydfil (; cy, Merthyr Tudful ) is the main town in Merthyr Tydfil County Borough, Wales, administered by Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council. It is about north of Cardiff. Often called just Merthyr, it is said to be named after Ty ...
, before which time the works were not regarded as being particularly notable.
William Crawshay II
William Crawshay II (27 March 1788 – 4 August 1867) was the son of William Crawshay I, the owner of Cyfarthfa Ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales.
William Crawshay II became an ironmaster when he took over the business from his father. He w ...
oversaw the redevelopment of the site in the 1830s during which time the surviving
rolling mill
In metalworking, rolling is a metal forming process in which metal stock is passed through one or more pairs of rolls to reduce the thickness, to make the thickness uniform, and/or to impart a desired mechanical property. The concept is sim ...
building was constructed. By 1842 this housed two mills and numerous furnaces. A major expansion to the works saw the addition of the
tinning
Tinning is the process of thinly coating sheets of wrought iron or steel with tin, and the resulting product is known as tinplate. The term is also widely used for the different process of coating a metal with solder before soldering.
It is most ...
house which had space for 12 furnaces.
[ The Crawshays operated the works until 1866 after which it was acquired by a company whose proprietors included William Lewis, Edward Williams and ]Lowthian Bell
Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, 1st Baronet, FRS (18 February 1816 – 20 December 1904) was a Victorian ironmaster and Liberal Party politician from Washington, County Durham, in the north of England. He was described as being "as famous in his day ...
. There were 5 mills in 1875 and this number had doubled by 1893.[ In 1895 the county medical officer, William Williams, noted the environmental impact of the tinplate works on the ]River Taff
The River Taff ( cy, Afon Taf) is a river in Wales. It rises as two rivers in the Brecon Beacons; the Taf Fechan (''little Taff'') and the Taf Fawr (''great Taff'') before becoming one just north of Merthyr Tydfil. Its confluence with the ...
. The water supply, which was diverted from the river north of the works, was emptied back into it downstream having been contaminated with sulphuric acid
Sulfuric acid ( American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid ( Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen and hydrogen, with the molecular fo ...
and sulphate of iron which resulted in discolouration of the river and its banks. The works went into decline in the 20th century and in 1939, when production ceased, there were only 4 working mills. The last operator of the works was Richard Thomas & Co. In 1941 the Ministry of Supply
The Ministry of Supply (MoS) was a department of the UK government formed in 1939 to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Minister of Supply. A separate ministry, however, was responsible for air ...
requisitioned the works for storage, and by 1946 several buildings had been demolished as part of the Tinplate Redundancy Scheme, an initiative established to tackle disused tinplate works. The site then came under the ownership of the South Wales and Monmouthshire Trading Estate.[
]
Listed buildings
There are six Grade II* listed buildings on the site. The oldest of these are the rolling mill and the retaining wall for the leat
A leat (; also lete or leet, or millstream) is the name, common in the south and west of England and in Wales, for an artificial watercourse or aqueduct dug into the ground, especially one supplying water to a watermill or its mill pond. Ot ...
. An ashlar slab over the wall and a keystone at the south end of the mill date both of these to 1835. The long rolling mill is where bars of iron were transformed into thin sheets. The waterwheels that powered the machines were supplied with water by iron launders connected to the leat running parallel to the west side of the building.[ The other four listed buildings were built during the expansion of the 1850s. These are the smithy, a ]casting
Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a ''casting'', which is ejected ...
house and workshop, a workshop, and the tinning house. The final stages of the manufacturing process took place in the tinning house which was where the iron sheets were coated of molten tin.
See also
*Melingriffith Tin Plate Works
The Melingriffith Tin Plate Works (alternate: Melingriffith Tin and Iron Works; Welsh, ''Melingruffydd''; translation, "Griffith's Mill") were post medieval tin and iron works located on Tŷ-mawr Road, in Whitchurch, Cardiff, Wales. Founded so ...
*Grade II* listed buildings in Rhondda Cynon Taf
Rhondda Cynon Taf is a county borough in South Wales. It is located to the north-west of Cardiff and covers an area of . In 2020 the population was approximately 241,900.
In the United Kingdom, the term listed building refers to a building or ot ...
References
Bibliography
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{{coord, 51.583661, -3.318807, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title
Buildings and structures in Rhondda Cynon Taf
Grade II* listed buildings in Rhondda Cynon Taf
Industrial history of Wales