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Lower Machen
Lower Machen maps
Historic maps of Lower Machen and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Lower Machen maps
Lower Machen photos
We have no photos of Lower Machen, although we do have photos of these nearby places:
Machen| Pontymister| Risca| Bassaleg| Pontywaun| Cwmcarn| Bedwas| Allt-Yr-Yn| Caerphilly| Rumney| Llanbradach| Newport| Llantarnam| Pontllanfraith| Rhiwbina| Cwmbran| Newbridge| Maes-Y-Cwmmer| Maesycwmmer| Ystrad Mynach| Tongwynlais| Hengoed| Blackwood| Cardiff| Llandaff
Lower Machen area books
Displaying 1 of 3 books about Lower Machen and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Lower Machen
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Lower Machen.
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Living on The Farm
I lived at 2 Plass Cottages until we were evicted in 1951 or 1952, my step dad worked on the farm, his name was George Squire.
Childhood Memories
My grandfather lived in the tied cottage on the Plas farm in Lower Machen. His name was Albert Thomas, known as Bert. I have many fond memories of him and his cottage and playing around the farmyard and watching him complete his chores. I would stand for ages in the milking parlour watching him, Owen (owner of the farm), and his sons Stuart and Brian at work! All the cows had names and my grandfather used to make me laugh by talking to them and pretending they were answering him in moo language!
A 'not so nice' memory was the day I fell up to my waist in cow dung in the slurry pit on the farm while playing tag with my cousins Glyn and Clive! I can remember having to stand in the bath and my grandad washing me down and laughing his head off! He could not wait to tell my parents!
I also have fond memories of the girl who lived in the cottage next door. Her... Read more
Gwent memories
Happy Days
I was born in a house on, and have lived in, Channel View for my entire life. I now live in a house built to the left of the garages in the forground. As a kid I played behind those garages and made dens with my mates and sailed down and sunk in the canal on home-made rafts, which is where the picture is taken from.
Takes me Back
In this picture, the post in the middle of the path is an old canon barrel. When I went for walks along this canal as a kid, I can remember running on ahead of my parents a short distance with my brother and sister to the canon barrel to see how much dirt and gravel we could gather up and shove down the end of it before my parents caught up with us. The house in the distance is Fernlea, and the picture is taken from the canal path outside the 'Prince of Wales' public house.
Channel View
I was born in No 9 Manor Bungalows (The Prefabs), in 1947, Channel View wasn't built then, the area was laid to allotments & then open meadow to Gelli Crescent & Tynycwm Halt Railway platforms. In 1955 the second Phase of Channel View was built & we lived on the road leading to the Garages in the foreground of the Picture, the third Phase of Channel view was built a couple of years later to the left of the Garages & eventually connected to Gelli Crescent. In the middle ground of the Picture are Pontymister Welfare Grounds & the bowling Green, in the far distance is Pontymister Steelworks Just below Ochrwyth & Machen mountain. Before the Power Station was built at Rogerstone we had a clear View of the Bristol Channel !! which was later obscured by the Power Station Cooling Towers, sad, before Phase three we also had clear views of the Cricket Grounds. To the right/opposite the two garages were another two garages, in the Seventies my... Read more
Channel View
I've seen this photo in several places and it's always captioned as being 1965 - it's got to be before that because I lived in Channel View from 1960 to 63 just below those garages on the right of the photo - and in this photo the building hasn't even started.
I can remember playing behind those garages - even creating a little "graveyard" there for my deceased pet white mice. There's a path up to the canal from behind the garages (which is where this photo is taken from) and there was a great tree-swing with a death defying drop if you swung all the way out from the bank - I imagine there were quite a few injuries, if not broken bones as a result of that swing.
Happy days
Telephoning
The public telephone in this picture of Tredegar Street was outside my father's butcher shop. There were only two buttons to press: button A and button B, but people were terrified of pressing the wrong one. My father, Gomer Mumford, used to do the phoning for lots of people. Sometimes coins would jam in the mechanism so he would release them using a butcher's knife and pocket the money!
Next door, to the butcher shop my mother Adelaide opened a flower shop just before the Coronation. Bit by bit we added plants, fruit and vegetables. When sweets came off ration we also sold confectionery. Such was the pent-up craving for sweets that I remember selling fifteen 7 lb jars of Sherbert Lemons in a day. People queuing for the Palace cinema used to buy sweets and cigarettes from us. All the family would be on hand to cope with the tremendous rush of trade. We had a side window devoted to sweets for children. At lunchtime we would be pressed... Read more
