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Llanbradach
Llanbradach maps
Historic maps of Llanbradach and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Llanbradach maps
Llanbradach area books
Displaying 1 of 2 books about Llanbradach and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Llanbradach
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Wartime in Llanbradach
I was born in Merthyr Tydfil but my grandparents lived in Rees Terrace. My grandfather, Hugh Price Watkins, was the St John Ambulance driver for the pits. I lived and went to school in Llanbradach for about three months while my mother was in hospital. Whenever there was an accident in the mines, the phone would ring in grandad's house and I would be told the location of the accident and would run as fast as my legs would carry me to the garage right next to the bridge by the station. After picking up another man, I would accompany them in the ambulance to the accident site and would often ride in the back of the ambulance with the injured pitman, not something that Health & Safety would allow now. Without exception they would say to me: "Don't go down the pit, Bach." I didn't, but spent my life in the printing industry in Oxfordshire and Canada. I enjoyed playing in the park with its wonderful collection of swings... Read more
Happy Memories
The High Street is where I was born in 1955. In the street was the Working Mans Club, the Cinema and 'Jeffrey's' (the sweet shop where my brother and I used to go and spend out pocket money on a Saturday). Once a year all the children would go to the Working Mans Cub for an orange, thrupenny bit and a stamp on the hand, I cannot remember the reason for it now but I remember it was special. My brother and I used to go to the cinema on a Saturday, it cost us 6d to get in and we had 6d for sweets. The mine closed and we moved but I still have lots of very happy memories.
Happy Days
Brought up in Thomas Street from 1947. I remember the cinema at the end of the street, and the Police Station next to the Llanbradach Hotel .As someone mentioned earlier, summer was spent at the outdoor baths, always freezing cold, next to the park. Days were spent out all day up the mountain nesting, making bows and arrows or camping, what great times, we didn't have much but there was always something to do. I even met my to be wife outside the Wokmans Hall, married her and moved to Caerphilly.
Growing up
I grew up in the "Joinery" where there were lots of characters and moved just down the street when I was 15.My parents still live there. I remember "The Green" where the Boys Brigade hall was at the bottom of the street. Seeing people on the doorsteps and the women out chatting, that type of community has long gone, you knew everyone in the street and locally. The doctors surgery was in Park View and the Welsh chapel opposite it. I too remember queing up for the News Year's Day stamp and money and then we went round the shops wishing them a happy new year and sometimes we got a bag of sweets or a piece of fruit from them, my grandchildren could not believe it when I told them about it. The high street has changed so much since my childhood when we used to hang around by "The Llanbradach Hotel" and meet up with mates. Ah, the good old days when we were young.
The Good Old Brad
Moved from Llanbradach in 1968, now live in Deal, Kent. Thinking back to when I lived in the Brad, we played in the park and went to the swimming pool (which was always freezing cold) and the mountain just at the back of where I lived in Yyn-y-Graig Road. We played for hours up that mountain, sliding down on cardboard, making camps, all so innocent and good in them days. I went to school in School Street and went on to Caerphilly Sec, I was friends with Klara Lamch, my cousin Jackie Osbourn and Janet Milroy. Does anyone remember the Britton family? My name is Susan and I miss the old friends that I knew all that time ago.
1976 in Llanbradach
I visited my gran and my aunts in Llanbradach twice in the early 1970s.
It was my first ever visit to Great Britain and I fell in love with the church. To someone accustomed to supermarkets, shopping from grocer to butcher to baker was like having an Enid Blyton book come true.
My sisters and I soon made friends with two of the girls who lived there, Susan and I forget the other girl's name. I can see their faces so clearly. They took us to a public swimming pool, to a cinema and to a fish and chip shop and especially under the train bridge so we could scream when the train passed overhead.
We forded your extremely cold little river, we hid under ferns on the hillside and we climbed the slopes on the other side of the valley by the train tracks.
If you are in your late 40s and remember making friends with four children from Barbados in the West Indies in... Read more
LLANBRADACH PUB ON THE CORNER
My grandparents, Ben & Polly Thomas, ran the pub opposite the Miners Welfare. I was evacuated there and I can remember on Saturday night, the US Servicemen would come along with their band and play in the pub. My grandparents had a white haired terrier called "Tim". Tim would come into the bar, the bottom bar where the widows of miners were allowed in on Saturday nights. Tim would go into the middle of the bar carrying an enamel bucket with a wooden handle. He would swing the bucket around and then let it go, run and jump over the bar and race out the back. There was the bottom bar, the top bar (posh bar) and the Snug out the back. My grandparents did not like cats but had to have one for the mice in the cellars. They called the cat "HITLER", it was fun to see in the cellars a mouse come round the corner with Hitler chasing and Tim chasing Hitler. Just like Tom and Jerry.... Read more
