BRIDGEND TOWN The life and times of an old market town

PART ONE

( Photo 1 ) . St illtyd`s church and to the right of the church the ruins of the castle ( Newcastle ) photo taken January 2022.

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Suicide during this time was against the law and regarded as a serious crime.

A mill race is the current of water that turns a water wheel.

Evening Express

14th May 1907

IN A MILL-RACE.

MOTHER AND HER CHILD RESCUED.

BRIDGEND WOMAN ARRESTED,

Police constable Polsom, of Bridgend, yesterday evening arrested a woman on a charge of attempting to commit suicide. The woman's name is Ellen Radbone (32), wife of David Radbone, of 35, North street ( Tondu road ). Bridgend. It is stated that she jumped into the Brewery Stream, a mill-race, with her eight- months-old child in her arms. She was rescued from her perilous position by Amelia Vaughan, a single woman, living at The Graig, Newcastle Hill. The rescuer states that she saw Mrs. Radbone hurrying along Brewery road about a quarter past five o'clock in the afternoon. She followed her. And saw her get through the railings near the stream and take her baby by the waist. Vaughan rushed forward and snatched the child from its mother's arms. Mrs. Radbone then threw herself into the stream, and Vaughan handed the baby to another woman who had come along, and afterwards succeeded in pulling Mrs. Radbone out. She was taken care of by some people who had collected until the arrival of the police. Prisoner in Court. Mrs. Radbone was brought before the magistrates today. Police constable Polsom said the prisoner when arrested said, "I say nothing now." Inspector Evans asked for a remand until Saturday, and suggested that she might be remanded until then to the workhouse. The Chairman: She will be properly be looked after there. I suppose.' Inspector Evans: Yes, sir. The prisoner said she was very sorry for what she had done. She promised not to do such a thing again. Inspector Evans said he had known the woman for some time, and had always found her quiet and respectable. The remand was granted.

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Newcastle Castle, Bridgend.

Newcastle Castle (Welsh: Y Castell Newydd) is a medieval castle located on Newcastle Hill, overlooking the town centre of Bridgend in Glamorgan, South Wales. It was originally believed to date from 1106 when a ring work was created at the site by the Norman baron Robert Fitzhamon.

The Glamorgan Gazette

18th February 1916

CASTLE RUINS FALL AT BRIDGEND TWO-TON BOULDERS PITCH INTO STREAM.

Huge blocks of masonry from the old castle ruins adjoining St. illtyd's Church, Newcastle Hill, Bridgend during the early hours of Wednesday morning, owing to the collapse of the part of the castle walls overlooking Brewery Road ( Tondu road ). , rolled down the steep incline into the road and stream. It is probable that the foundation of the wall had been affected by the heavy rains of the last few days. Great blocks of masonry weighing: two tons or more were discharged and rolled down the hill, breaking small trees in their path, hitting the retaining wall, and pitching into the mill stream across the road, knocking down about twenty feet of the wall dividing the stream from the footpath. Other boulders fell into the roadway, completely blocking it for traffic. The houses a long Brewery Road are situate about 100 yards on the Bridgend side of the spot where the masonry fell, and fortunately few people travel this road in the early hours of the morning. Had the thing happened during the busy hours of the day lives might have been lost for the road is used by all kinds of vehicular traffic. The castle was a place of some importance in the 12th century. It was probably erected by Sir Simon de Turbervlle about 1150.

The site is near the edge of a bluff rising from what is now the public roadway. The position was one of great natural strength. The southern gateway, which can be seen from the church yard of St. Illtyd's adjoining, is a fine specimen of Norman work. The castle is said to have been burnt by the Welsh in 1226.

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The Cardiff Times

20th August 1904

In 1978, the hunting of otters in the UK was banned.

OTTER HUNTING AT BRIDGEND.

Excellent Sport on the Ewenny. On Monday morning Mr Hastings Clay's otter bounds met at Schwyll, a spring on the Ewenny river, about two miles from Bridgend. There were a number of ladies and gentlemen present, amongst them being Mr and Mrs Hastings Clay, Mrs J. I. D. Nicholl, Dr. and Mrs Brewer (Newport), Mr Longford Sainsbury, and parties from Llanharran House and Ewenny Priory.

On Ewenny and Waterton Moors the hounds had a. drag, but there was no real sport until the afternoon. An otter was then started near Moor Mill. To be hounds were soon in full cry, and excellent sport was provided. At one time the otter was so hard-pressed that to gain another part of the river it cut across an angle, darting through a wood, and ran so close to the spectators that some tried to kick it. For a time the otter was lost in the mill dam. The water was let out, Put it was found that the otter had escaped to the lower part of the stream. The hounds soon got upon the trail, and coming up with their quarry quickly despatched it. after about the best bit of otter hunting that has ever taken place in the Bridgend neighbourhood. The animal was found to weigh 20lbs. (9.072 kg )

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The Cardiff Times

20th August 1904

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815, near Waterloo in Belgium, part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands at the time. A French army under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh Coalition, a British-led coalition consisting of units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of the Duke of Wellington, referred to by many authors as the Anglo-allied army or Wellington's army, and a Prussian army under the command of Field Marshal von Blücher, referred to also as Blücher's army. The battle marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815)

ONE HUNDRED AND THREE.

WATERLOO VETERAN AT BRIDGEND.

This is to certify that John Vaughan was born on March 13th, 1801, and is 103 years of age. He is licensed to sell bootlaces and other articles. With a tin placard on his breast, bearing the above certificate, the old man shuffled across the Bridgend Railway Station platform, and I slowly and stiffly got into the Maesteg train, He was a patriarchal figure, with long, wavy, venerable grey locks, evidently extremely old. Who it was who certified to the age was not clear, the signature being half obliterated. But the old man might have an interesting story, nevertheless.

The Pressman went up to the carriage in which the patriarch was seated. Are you 103?" 'It was a clumsy start, as the Pressman was at once made to realise. The time-worn centenarian seated in the corner of the carriage looked the questioner up and down with an air of offended dignity, and there was inexpressible disgust in the rheumy eyes set in a massive head. Of course I am," said the centenarian pedlar in husky voice. He fumbled in his pocket, drew forth a worn leather case, and with trembling hands, gnarled and knotted, extracted a pedlar's certificate. Read that," he said, with something approaching hauteur, The certificate was signed by Superintendent John Davis, Bridgend, and the age down was 103. Where were yon born ?" Woolwich," came the reply, wearily, as though the centenarian was tired of such questions. Then came the question put to all centenarians. Can you remember the battle of Waterloo ?" Why, I was there," and the old man brightened visibly. It was who led Blucher on to the field. I was a little over fourteen then, and was a bugler in the 2nd Battalion Royal Fusiliers." The old man paused for breath. What about the battle ?" The Kaiser should have been there. The reply would have pleased him. It was a lost battle. Yes, a lost battle. Wellington was beaten. He wouldn't have come away alive if Blucher hadn't come." The centenarian said he had also fought in the Crimea, where he was struck by a spent cannon ball. He had taken a fancy to Bridgend, and thought he would settle down there. He could travel to Maesteg or the Ogmore and Garw Valleys every day to sell his wares to the colliers. The centenarian relic of the stage coach days chuckled and chortled at the idea of going away by train every day. I'm going there today," and he shoved a railway ticket into the hands of the Pressman. Troedyrhiw-Garth." Beyond the linguistic powers of even an old soldier. "Bet I can get on all right," he added. I've got a pension. I was a sergeant-major."

A pause.

But why have you asked me all these questions ?' questions ?' I am a reporter." Oh, now you're talking business. I can't talk to you in public." The Pressman felt rebuffed. Presently the centenarian beckoned him closer and whispered in his ear, I can tell you a lot more though, but in private. Meet me tomorrow at the model lodging house." And the Maesteg train steamed out, taking to business one who is, surely, the very last of the Waterloo veterans.

Definition of Rheumy ADJECTIVE (of a person's eyes) watery.

Definition of hauteur, ARROGANCE, HAUGHTINESS

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Definition of Lilliputian. A very small person or being.

The child mortality rate in the United Kingdom, for children under the age of five, was 329 deaths per thousand births in the 1860`s. This means that approximately one in every three children born in the 1860s did not make it to their fifth birthday.

The Cardiff Times

25th March 1864

A LILLIPUTIAN.

In the Bridgend and Cowbridge Union Workhouse there is a very small male infant, the smallest that has ever been known to live for three months. It is about three inches across the shoulders, and all other parts in proportion. It looks about 50 years old. The features very much resemble those of a monkey. It seems that the child was born in the Britton Ferry Lunatic Asylum, his mother being an inmate there. She tried to destroy herself, both by a rope and with fire, a few months before the birth of the child. She was on one occasion severely burnt, but has quite recovered since.

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( Photo 2 ) . Bridgend castle ( Newcastle ), photo taken on a cold day in January 2022.