Gwauntreoda Engineering Company

I’m told that the Brown Lennox factory in Pontypridd manufactured the anchor chains for the Titanic!

We had an engineering firm in the village which had just as memorable (almost infamous) claim to fame

The Gwauntreoda Engineering Company, which was formed about 1861, was part of a very successful manufacturing group based in Manchester. The works were built in Whitchurch in open countryside, just south of the recently constructed TVR railway line, and had vehicular access off College Road. There was ample water for the boilers and other plant from the outfall stream of Little Mill, which was north of the railway line. They even constructed their own branch railway siding into the works

They had built 10 workmen’s cottages on the main road (are these the cottages which are there today?). There were 2 lodging houses in the row too, for itinerant engineers in the works. With over a hundred people working there, I can’t imagine where everyone slept!

The Crown Hotel next door, built about the same time, was obviously an attraction

The works were very busy, and the successful Gwauntreoda Engineering Works manufactured all of the iron structure for the new two-mile-long Tay River Bridge in Scotland.

Why is this important you might ask? Well, the Tay River Bridge collapsed catastrophically, shortly after it had been completed in 1879, whilst a passenger train was crossing. It is thought that it was one of the worst train accidents ever to happen in Scotland, with 59 people killed. The Scottish poet William McGonagall even wrote one of his most famous poems about it!

You would think most people would play down any involvement in such a disaster. But strangely, the Gwauntreoda Engineering Company continued to declare their involvement in advertisements for years after!

By 1879 (shortly after the disaster) there was an article in newspapers advising:
‘we regret to hear that Messrs de Bergue and Co of Manchester, intend closing their branch establishment known as Wauntreoda Works, near Llandaff, as soon as orders which they have now in hand are completed. The works in question, which have been in operation some 18 years, and comprise plant estimated at £30,000, employ about 100 men in boiler-making, who will, inconsequence of the determination of the company, be thrown out of work’

This was about the same time that the Booker empire at Melingriffith collapsed too!

In 1884, in another vain attempt to sell, the works contents were listed as:
erecting sheds, smiths and machine shops, gas works, railway siding etc, occupying about two and a half acres of ground, with good water supply. The works are complete with steam engine, boiler, shafting, smiths fires, furnaces, cranes, punching, shearing, planning, riveting, turning and other tools for the business of boiler and girder making
you can almost taste the foul air of such a noisy and scary Victorian works!

The map below, based on the OS map of 1880, shows the works. It had a 3-bay building, with their own railway track access to deliver and dispatch the heavy iron sections manufactured. It had a gasometer, so was producing gas for their boilers and furnaces. There are no photographs that I am aware of, so we can only guess what the place was like

In the end, the company continued in some form and was sold a few years later by private contract to a Swansea tinplate manufacturer, and they announced that they were contemplating restarting shortly. I wonder, did this happen?

Can anyone cast any light on what happened afterwards?

Everything is so different now. The railway and bridge are still there, the Crown pub has gone, replaced by smart apartments and a row of cottages still front the road. Little Mill to the north of the railway line has gone, and I assume that the mill stream has too. And of course, all the open fields are now filled with houses

Were any of your family working there? Are there stories about this corner of the village that you can share? We’d love to hear

 

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