The Old Bridge

CHAPTER 35

The Old Bridge

1980`s

I traveled the 17 miles down to Wick village from Pontycymmer to pick up, my then girlfriend Gaenor, once I had picked her up, I double backed over the same route that I came down on, and popped into Bridgend town to take a look around one of the bike shops there.

There were two bikes shops in Bridgend town at this time in the 1980s, they were Two Wheel Services and Les Griffith’s Motors.

Les Griffith’s was known among the local bikers as ( Pans ) because of one of the guys on the parts counter who was called Peter.

For some reason someone added PAN to peter’s name and the nickname stuck.

At the time the shop was in a different location in Bridgend town, it was completely at the opposite end to where les Griffiths was set up on Eweeny road and the old shop was known as Waterton Cross Motors.

We would normally Stay in the bike shop for a little while.

I had a chat with Keith Williams who worked the spares counter, a very knowledgeable guy and very helpful, he was always the go-to-man to see about any parts that your bike needed.

If you required any bits or pieces for your bike, he was the man to see, he dealt in facts with no bullshit, he would always give you the best deal that he could, Keith was always fair and aboveboard and always had time for you. A quick chat in the shop with whoever was about was a normal and usual thing to do, it was a meeting place as well as a bike shop.

Nothing was happening this weekend, no rallies, no parties and no Ride-outs as they call them nowa days, so finding myself at a loose end, I intended headed down to Sarn, just a couple of miles down the road to see some of my friends, and see what they were up to.

Everyone had telephone landlines in those days, normally just one phone in the house, placed in the hallway of your house, so there was no quick mobile phone call to see where everyone was!.

If you were out and about on the road you had to go too wherever you think your friends were at whatever time of the day it was.

Nowadays everyone has a mobile phone so you don’t need to plan your day, you just stand around sending obscure messages on face book, twitter or whatever social media bollocks people use now, it kinda takes the fun out of it.

At least we spent more time on the road, which in my opinion is a much better deal.

There were a couple of routes I could have taken out of Bridgend to get to Sarn, the old Coity road way that would run me past the local mental hospital of Hengoed on Sarn common, or I could take the more open road down through Pen-y-fai.

The Pen-y-fai ride was more open with fewer houses lining the road, at that time in the 80s there was no real housing expansion, and very little alteration of the road systems like there is now, the run may have been a couple miles or so longer, but a faster ride.

So Pen-y-fai, it is then.

I made good time on the dual carriageway that runs up and out of Bridgend, that leads passed the Angel pub at the bottom of park street.

I cut in on the inside of a queue of cars without slowing down, there were parked cars near the curb on the left side of the road, I had just enough room to make it passed in the middle of the two line of cars.

The cars were slow moving and all of them were indicating to pull into the embassy cinema car-park, must have been some afternoon matinée film being shown.

I quickly passed them, then I passed the dogs home that runs under the cliff below the shadow of the castle, I then passed the abattoir at the brow of the hill and then down the other side, passing the garage near to the junction that leads into a leafy lane to pen-y-fai.

The layout of the road totally changers at this point, just passed the garage called the Pen-y-fai service station, the dual carriageway ends, and then the old Victorian road, the A4063 begins, this road was unusually wide and level, this area was known as Angelton.

Once there was a small village here during the Victorian times, but now the village as almost completely disappeared, this is because there was a Cholera outbreak, which wiped out most of the village, with no villagers, Angelton vanished and no longer exists but for the name.

All along this road there were trees on both sides of the road, it was completely lined with mature trees that must have been planted during Victorian times, the trees created a leafy canopy that made the ride very picturesque, the road twisted and meandered around like old wide river.

There were no domestic houses here, the land belonged to the hospital.

As we zipped along on the bike, we could just catch glimpses of the Victorian buildings of the hospital through the trees.

The road continued like this with trees creating an umbrella of leaves to the village of Aberkenfig.

Glanrhyd hospital was set in a sprawling estate comprising many acres of land, much of which was built on with all the buildings they needed to run a metal asylum, inside the grounds of the hospital, there were large areas of green fields to allow the patients to have a walk around in the open, to enjoy some fresh air and a little excise, it was the only freedom they had, there would have been attendants/nurses watching their every move, the patients had nowhere to go, has the hospital had tall stone walls completely surrounding its vast perimeter.

The Victorians established the three huge lunatic asylums has they called them then, well away from the general public.

To the Victorians insane people were an embarrassment and in their eyes the afflicted were best not to be seen in public, and their approach to mental illness was to hide the problem and keep it hidden away, and treat them with freezing cold water baths and electric shock treatment, and sometimes surgery which included a frontal cranial lobe lobotomy.

When all three hospitals were in full swing, they excepted patients from all over the country, back when all three of the asylums were open, there was a common phrase used which was associated with the hospitals, if someone was acting strange or playing the fool, something would be said like “ If you keep acting like that, they will be sending you to Bridgend “.

Bridgend during the late Victorian period was well-known across the UK for having the three separate mental hospital/asylum complex.

( out of sight out of mind )

Glanrhyd is a mile or two outside Bridgend town, there were two another mental hospital around Bridgend, the area around Glanrhyd was originally called Angelton as it was built on the land that once belonged to Angelton farm or Angeltown as it is sometimes to referred too, the hospital was built in 1864.

Whichever route I choose, I would have to pass one of the hospitals to get to Sarn.

And Yes, for some strange reason, Bridgend had quite a few mental or psychiatric facilities….

As I rode toward the hospital, I remembered my mate Wobble had told me about Glanrhyd hospital as he was brought up in the area.

He knew all the shortcuts in the area, so his advice would have been solid, he told me that there was an old bridge that spanned across the river on the far side of the hospital, and that it lead to the old lane called the black path, directly behind the hospital itself, so I decided to take a look at the bridge, and see if I could use this bridge has a shortcut.

( Photo 1) . Glanrhyd Hospital in the late 1860s, showing the entrance and the high stone perimeter walls, the twisty road on the right of the photo is the road from Bridgend, the tall ornate Victorian style chimney can be plainly seen on the left side of the photo.

The hospital was surrounded by high stone walls over six foot tall in places, the grounds of the hospital were spread out, with many separate buildings, it was very old looking place, with its own church and even had its own burial ground, it was built as a self-contained village, just for the long term residents and staff, basically a Victorian open prison.

The asylum was built during the Victorian era and must have been a very grim place in its time, this asylum being just one of three of this type of hospital in the area, all very close to each other, the others being Hengoed and Parc Gwellt, and they all looked very similar in design, they could have been quite easily mistaken for prisons.

Rumour had it that Parc Gwellt was where they kept all the dangerous patients, the murders and such like.

As I passed through the main gates of Glanrhyd hospital a sign said “ Only Authorized traffic allowed ” which I completely ignored of course.

I saw two nurse’s smoking and sitting on a bench near to the main entrance, they looked up has I rode passed, they just ignored me, and carried on with their smoke break, as I was riding through the grounds of the hospital, there was very little activity, it seemed far to quite for a large busy hospital, all I needed to do was find the bridge that Wobble had told me about, and my quick visit to the hospital would be over, I didn’t intend stopping here to long, the place was kind of creepy even in the light of day, I just followed the road round between the old stone buildings.

The only other sign of people that I saw was one orderly walking with two patients who didn’t seem to want to behave, he had his hands full.

The patients that were with the orderly were two older men, but were acting like naughty children, one of the patients actually had a lead or rope of some kind tied around his trouser belt, with the orderly hold the other end.

The orderly was far too busy with the patients to notice me, thankfully.

We rode quietly through the hospital grounds.

We passed a few buildings with the doorways recessed into the walls, the door itself would have been about a meter in from the outer wall.

I noticed standing in one of these doorways, a tall and very thin old looking man, there was nothing unusual about him being except for the fact that he was wearing what looked like a knitted Christmas jumper, I could see it was far too big for him, the length of the jumper stopped just above his knees, the jumper was red in colour except for the green Christmas tree that was emblazoned on the front which covered most of the front of the jumper, the tree design had numerous large fluffy woolen balls attached to it making them looked like Christmas babbles.

The only concern I had after spotting this guy, was that it was April and not December.

When I rode past him, he stepped back into the shadow of the doorway.

I watched the doorway and the guy in my mirror until we turned the corner, I was imagining all kinds of things like this mobile Christmas tree running after us with a hatchet in his hand, thankfully nothing like that happened.

Wobble was right with his description on how to find the bridge, he said follow the road around until you come to a large Victorian styled building, this did confuse me a little as all the buildings were Victorian.

He said it will have a tall ornate stone chimney, I can't miss it, the bridge would be just behind that building.

Riding slowly trying not to draw attention to myself, I headed to where I thought the bridge was and as luck had it, I found it straight away on the first attempt.

( Photo 2 ) . The chimney at Glanrhyd hospital.

Wobble was right, not that I doubted him, the Victorian chimney was hard to miss, it stood tall and was easily viewed from a distance.

The bridge was tucked away right back at a very little used area of the hospital.

No vehicles had been anywhere near this part of the sprawling hospital for a long while, there were dried leaves all over the road, it was very quiet, I could even hear the river flowing slowly past, it was so quite, I couldn’t see the river, there was far too much foliage and tall trees blocking my view.

At the center and beneath the bridge, there was a massive stone support structure.

I knew if I made it across to that part of the bridge, I would at least have a second chance to get to the other side, that is if, the first part of the bridge collapsed, I was banking on the fact that I would not just nose dive into the river below.

So, I pulled up and stopped just before the bridge and took a good look at it.

( Photo 3 ) . A typical Bailey Bridge, not the actual bridge in the story, but one very much like it, the river scene look very much like the photo.

The bridge was old.

It hadn’t been used by any vehicles for a long time. Construction of the bridge was by using steel girders with struts running at 45 degrees along both sides.

It was an old bailey type bridge, a design type that was used in the second world war.

All the original green paint on the steel work had been peeling off for a very long time, there were visible large areas of red rust at the bolted joints that were holding the bridge together, the bridge looked in a very poor condition and had not had any form of maintenance for a very long time.

The bridge was wide enough to drive, just one average sized car over it, with very little space on each side of the car, the actual road surface looked if it was made up from old railway sleepers, the wood of the sleepers being very worn and rotten in places, the whole area of the wooden part was green with moss and looked very wet, this bridge had been neglected for a very long time.

On closer inspection there were at least six large holes in the wooden planks, the river was plain to see flowing through these holes, yet they were far enough apart from each other and easily avoided by a bike, I was taking all this in, and working out my route across the bridge.

A large area of the bridge had leaves covering its road surface and they too looked very wet, there was no way to tell what the condition of the bridge was like under these rotting leaves, so I would need to avoid these areas as well has the gaps in the wood if I choose to cross.

At the entrance of the bridge, just three feet in front of me, I sat on the bike pondering if this really was a good idea, I could easily double back the way I came through the hospital grounds, and head toward Aberkenfig and from there ride up the steep hill in to Sarn, I waited a little while still considering the options that I had in front of me, I knew this could be dangerous after all it was not just me taking the risk, it was only then I notched a long rusty chain, partly covered by leaves on the ground in front of me, my front wheel was practically on top of it, attached to the chain, there was a sign about the size of a square motorbike number plate, it was hanging off the middle of the chain and held on by some thin wire, I could just make out the writing, written in both English and in Welsh, the sign was made of enamel plate, the English writing part of the sign was rotted away with large parts of the writing rusted away completely, making it difficult to read, but just visible and in better condition was the Welsh part ( Bont Peryglus Gwan ) parts of the word was still visible to read, which I read as “ Danger weak bridge ”. I looked up to my right side and noticed, yet another large sign partly covered with vines and other green stuff, “ DANGER, UNSAFE, DO NOT USE”.

( Photo 4 ). A similar warning sign, the one at the bridge looked very much like this one.

At the base of that sign, was yet another broken older sign, declaring that the bridge was unsafe for vehicles and pedestrians.

I said to my self quietly “ Oh FUCK it ” trying not to say it to loud, so Gaenor would not hear me, I knew she would start panicking if she thought I had any issues crossing the bridge, I then said loud enough for Gaenor to hear “ we are not going around now, we are already here, I’ll take the risk “, I don't think she heard me, as she did not reply to what I had just said, but there again if everything did go tits up, I could say I did warn her.

The river at this point was around 10 foot / 3 meters below the bridge, and the water was around 2 to 3 foot deep, it was a bit of a drop and a little splash not that far really, but still deep enough to drown in, unless of course the bike fell on top of me, then I would not need to worry about the drowning bit.

I was considering dropping the Tire pressures of both wheels, so I would get more of a grip and increase my tire contact with the wooden bridge surface, releasing just enough air out of the tube to spread the tire out flatter, so the tire’s would have more gripping area, but being two-up ( carrying a passenger ) leaving air out through the tire valve may have given me more problems than it was worth, I could have given myself tire creep, if I let out too much air, and that would have ruined my day completely.

So I decided against it, it would have thrown my handling out, all to hell and if I released too much air there was a possibility of getting ( Tire creep ) and that could have ripped the valve out of the tube, and I would then need to buy a new inner tube and the hassle of taking the wheel off and fixing the problem, and I had no guarantee that my friend wobble had a Tire air pump, so I dismissed that idea almost immediately.

Sitting astride the bike for a few minutes, the only sounds that could be heard was the flowing of the river as it quietly flowed past, and my Honda 550 patiently ticking over in anticipation.

I could also hear some distance away from me, some kind of industrial electrical motor humming to itself, but no other sound coming from the hospital.

Very eerie really when you think about how many people must have been there locked away in their wards.

So, I turned in my seat and said “ hang on, this will be interesting”.

She said “what do you mean?”

My reply was “ let's see if we can get across the bridge” a little louder came “WHAT DO YOU MEAN?” surely she must have been curious why we had sat there and not gone over the bridge yet, and then the realization of what I was about to do had just sunk in.

I said “look at the signl”, I then nodded in the direction of the rusty sign, and then pulled off, not giving her the option to get off the bike.

Slowly putting the front wheel on the first part of the bridge, I wanted to see if it gave way under the weight of the bike.

If the wood stated to fold under the weight I would have pulled back, it held and nothing fell off, so it looked safe enough, so I said “ OK, let’s see what happens next”.

I rode on to the bridge.

Just leaving the bike in first gear and keeping one foot on the wooden planks of the bridge, I was trying to feel if the wood was slippery under my foot.

The timber below me was creaking and groaning under the weight of the bike, yet I pulled a little further on to the bridge.

The creaking and cracking increased, and of course having to kind of zigzag across the bridge because of the holes.

I guessed that these parts of the planking were already too weak to hold any weight.

Halfway across, I head some splashing behind me, so I quickened the pace up a little, I couldn’t go too fast, as my rear Tire was skipping out sideways a little, because of the build up of green moss and wet leaves on the wooden planks.

I thought “ Time to go ”, picking a direct line on the bridge and ignoring the holes and heading straight for the far end of the bridge, just hopping that I’d picked the right line.

And with a quick twist of the throttle my rear wheel skipped out a little, I headed straight for the tree lined lane on the other side.

I crossed the bridge in seconds, all that waiting time and fuss for nothing, the bridge seemed safe enough.

Pulling on to the leafy tree covered lane and riding on about six foot or so alongside the river bank, I stopped the bike, this lane is known locally as the Black Path and I believe it was once a Tram road that was first used in the 1830s, when the miners of the time transported coal by horse and cart.

We pulled up at a safe distance and at that point I turned in my seat and looked back at the bridge, I could hear the splashing of water, so I flicked the side stand out, and dismounted the bike to take a better view of what was going on with the bridge.

I could see large chunks of the wooded planks falling into the river and floating away down the stream and then suddenly a whole section of the wooden road planking fell away, the middle bit in between the support span, the part that I had just ridden on completely collapsed with a great splash sending up waves on to the river banking.

I thought “ Well, I won’t be going back that way!”, not that I intended too, but it was well worth watching.

So the sign was telling the truth, I think I knew this anyway, the adventure was in seeing if I COULD get across in one piece.

If you don’t take some risks in life, then what’s the point of living, right?

The photo below is what the bridge looks like today in 2018.

The area looked a lot different in the early 1980s most of the trees on the river bank have gone and the roadway and the sides on the bridge have been replaced with some modern materials.

( Photo 5 ) . The actual bridge in 2018, taken from the hospital side of the river, it had changed quite a lot from how I remember it.