0:00:02 > 0:00:05It's hard to believe but, if you'd stood on this spot 200 years ago,
0:00:05 > 0:00:08all you'd have seen were fields and a few white cottages.
0:00:08 > 0:00:10But, for a relative newcomer,
0:00:10 > 0:00:13this place has more than left its mark on Welsh life.
0:00:13 > 0:00:16It's been the home to great builders, engineers,
0:00:16 > 0:00:20and one or two eccentrics.
0:00:20 > 0:00:23It's the birthplace of our national anthem,
0:00:23 > 0:00:27our favourite sculptures, and a world-famous singer.
0:00:27 > 0:00:31As people round here like to say, this is a town with no history
0:00:31 > 0:00:33but with hell of a past.
0:00:33 > 0:00:35This is the story of Pontypridd.
0:01:10 > 0:01:14# The old hometown looks the same
0:01:14 > 0:01:18# As I step down from the train
0:01:18 > 0:01:21# And there to meet me
0:01:21 > 0:01:26# Is my momma and poppa... #
0:01:26 > 0:01:30Tom Jones' old hometown of Pontypridd
0:01:30 > 0:01:33lies about 12 miles north of Cardiff
0:01:33 > 0:01:37and is famous as the market town for the valleys.
0:01:37 > 0:01:40It lies at the place where the River Rhondda meets the Taff,
0:01:40 > 0:01:44and it's these rivers that brought Pontypridd into existence.
0:01:46 > 0:01:48As far back as records go,
0:01:48 > 0:01:51Pontypridd was a place to cross the River Taff.
0:01:51 > 0:01:56Its original name was Pontytypridd, "the bridge by the earthen house".
0:01:56 > 0:02:00There was no town here. So why did people want to cross the river?
0:02:00 > 0:02:04Well, the answer lay another dozen miles up another river valley,
0:02:04 > 0:02:06at Penrhys in the Rhondda.
0:02:08 > 0:02:12In the Middle Ages, there was a timber bridge slung across
0:02:12 > 0:02:17the river here to take pilgrims on their way to the shrine at Penryhs.
0:02:17 > 0:02:20I have this sort of idea that
0:02:20 > 0:02:22- pilgrimage is all about some massive trek.- Yes.
0:02:22 > 0:02:26Is it true you could do a sort of mini-break pilgrimage?
0:02:26 > 0:02:27Oh, yes. Yes.
0:02:27 > 0:02:32Quite a lot of the pilgrims who went to Penrhys would've come from the area round here.
0:02:32 > 0:02:35And the thing about pilgrimage routes is that
0:02:35 > 0:02:37you build the bridge because of the pilgrimage,
0:02:37 > 0:02:40but then everybody else can use it.
0:02:41 > 0:02:44After Henry VIII closed down the monasteries,
0:02:44 > 0:02:46there were no more pilgrims.
0:02:46 > 0:02:49There was no money to pay for the upkeep of the crossing.
0:02:49 > 0:02:52For the farmers on either side of the river, this was a problem.
0:02:52 > 0:02:56So, in 1746, they commissioned a local stonemason,
0:02:56 > 0:02:58William Edwards, to build a new bridge.
0:02:58 > 0:03:01It took Edwards four attempts to get it right.
0:03:01 > 0:03:05This spring floods swept away his early wooden versions
0:03:05 > 0:03:08and his first stone bridge collapsed under its own weight.
0:03:08 > 0:03:10You could imagine that, by this stage,
0:03:10 > 0:03:12the farmers were getting a bit fed up.
0:03:12 > 0:03:14But Edwards wanted to give it one last shot
0:03:14 > 0:03:17and the result was an engineering masterpiece.
0:03:24 > 0:03:28That William Edwards' bridge has survived more than 250 years
0:03:28 > 0:03:30is testament to its brilliant design.
0:03:30 > 0:03:34To reduce the weight, he put in these holes on either end.
0:03:34 > 0:03:37When it was completed in 1756,
0:03:37 > 0:03:42it was the longest single-span stone bridge in the whole of Europe,
0:03:42 > 0:03:46snatching the record from the Rialto of Venice.
0:03:46 > 0:03:48All we need here are some gondolas.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56For an idea of what the bridge looked like when it was new,
0:03:56 > 0:04:02there's this, The Bridge of Beauty, painted in 1790 by Julius Ibbotson.
0:04:02 > 0:04:05There's the bridge, surrounded by lush farmland.
0:04:05 > 0:04:09It's no surprise that other artists - Turner, Richard Wilson -
0:04:09 > 0:04:14were drawn to this but, just as this painting was being completed,
0:04:14 > 0:04:17the landscape was about to change for ever.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20Noise, bustle and heat, they are our impressions.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23But it makes any Welshman thrill with pride to hear mention of Pontypridd,
0:04:23 > 0:04:26industry of the hardest and toughest variety.
0:04:26 > 0:04:29But King Coal's domain has majesty.
0:04:29 > 0:04:33The industrial revolution in South Wales started in the 1750s
0:04:33 > 0:04:35with the ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil.
0:04:35 > 0:04:40The problem was transporting the iron products to their destinations.
0:04:40 > 0:04:44The solution was the Glamorganshire Canal, started in 1790
0:04:44 > 0:04:48and its 25-mile length completed a mere four years later.
0:04:48 > 0:04:52In the 1970s, the canal was buried under the A470,
0:04:52 > 0:04:56a tribute to the canal builders' choice of route.
0:04:56 > 0:05:00But there is one short stretch still visible in Pontypridd.
0:05:00 > 0:05:04And, in the last couple of years, a band of local enthusiasts
0:05:04 > 0:05:07have begun restoring it to its former glory.
0:05:12 > 0:05:15It was the realisation, about two years ago,
0:05:15 > 0:05:19that particularly these locks were starting to deteriorate.
0:05:19 > 0:05:23There were trees growing out, as you can see there,
0:05:23 > 0:05:24damaging the structure.
0:05:24 > 0:05:26They are grade II listed structures.
0:05:26 > 0:05:29They're historic and important for Pontypridd.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32It struck a few of us then that we should be
0:05:32 > 0:05:34doing more than had been done in the past.
0:05:34 > 0:05:35Oh, lovely mud!
0:05:35 > 0:05:39It's funny, isn't it, to think that here we are,
0:05:39 > 0:05:42we'd have been looking up at the bottom of barges
0:05:42 > 0:05:43carrying the output of Wales.
0:05:43 > 0:05:46That's right, yeah. Extremely important, you know.
0:05:46 > 0:05:50There was nothing else that could move that sort of quantity efficiently.
0:05:50 > 0:05:54The ultimate plan is to restore the locks, the bridge, the basin,
0:05:54 > 0:05:59and a length of canal as it was 150 years ago.
0:05:59 > 0:06:02The canal meant that Pontypridd started to develop as raw materials
0:06:02 > 0:06:06came down the valleys on an early railway called a dram road,
0:06:06 > 0:06:10before being loaded onto the canal barges.
0:06:10 > 0:06:13Coal came down from the Rhondda on the dram road
0:06:13 > 0:06:15to be taken on from Pontypridd by canal.
0:06:15 > 0:06:17There's a clue to what happened here.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20This is the Tumble Inn, where the coal was tumbled out,
0:06:20 > 0:06:22ready to be loaded into the barges.
0:06:22 > 0:06:27The canal was also the reason Pontypridd's most famous factory came to the town.
0:06:27 > 0:06:31The Brown Lenox Chainworks opened in 1818 and made anchor chains
0:06:31 > 0:06:36for all the biggest ships from the 19th century right up until the QE2.
0:06:38 > 0:06:41This is Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
0:06:41 > 0:06:45Behind him, chains from Pontypridd.
0:06:45 > 0:06:49Brown Lenox's innovation was the bar across the middle of the chain
0:06:49 > 0:06:51which made them immensely strong.
0:06:51 > 0:06:53From such simple ideas, empires are built.
0:06:53 > 0:06:55They're used on giant liners.
0:06:55 > 0:06:58The Queen Mary carried a Pontypridd chain
0:06:58 > 0:07:01and battleships Rodney and Nelson are anchored by chains made by men
0:07:01 > 0:07:04whose hearts are chained strongly to Wales, the land they love.
0:07:04 > 0:07:08# Ooh! We're back on the train
0:07:08 > 0:07:09# Ooh!
0:07:09 > 0:07:11# Aah!
0:07:11 > 0:07:13# Ooh!
0:07:13 > 0:07:18# Back on the chain gang. #
0:07:19 > 0:07:23The Brown Lenox Chainworks were a big part of Pontypridd's life
0:07:23 > 0:07:26for the best part of 200 years.
0:07:26 > 0:07:31They closed in the year 2000 and soon all this will be a supermarket.
0:07:31 > 0:07:35From the great chains of Brunel's ships to a chain store.
0:07:35 > 0:07:39Somehow, the links of history have been broken.
0:07:45 > 0:07:48But there is a bit of Brunel in Pontypridd.
0:07:48 > 0:07:51In 1836, he designed this impressive viaduct,
0:07:51 > 0:07:55part of the new Taff Vale Railway.
0:07:55 > 0:07:59But the station here was called Newbridge. What was going on?
0:07:59 > 0:08:02Well, while the whole area around here had always been called
0:08:02 > 0:08:06Pontytypridd, with the completion of Edwards' bridge,
0:08:06 > 0:08:09it became known as Newbridge.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12It took the postmaster Charles Bassett to sort it out.
0:08:12 > 0:08:16Fed up with getting letters for every other Newbridge in Wales,
0:08:16 > 0:08:21in 1856 he had the name officially changed to Pontypridd.
0:08:21 > 0:08:23Mind you, the railway took another decade
0:08:23 > 0:08:25before it changed the name of the station.
0:08:25 > 0:08:27Trains! Always a bit late.
0:08:27 > 0:08:29But, even with its new name,
0:08:29 > 0:08:33mid-19th century Pontypridd was still a pretty small place.
0:08:33 > 0:08:35The population was only about 5,000,
0:08:35 > 0:08:38a tenth the size of an Aberdare or Merthyr.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42However, in 1856, the same year Pontypridd got its name,
0:08:42 > 0:08:45the town gave Wales a very special piece of music.
0:08:45 > 0:08:49Listen to the roar for Eddie Butler as he leads his new-look side out.
0:08:54 > 0:08:58Mae hen wlad fy nhadau, an anthem to stir the heart of any Welsh person
0:08:58 > 0:09:00and fire up an international team.
0:09:00 > 0:09:03It didn't always work, mind.
0:09:03 > 0:09:07Composed in Pontypridd by father and son team Evan and James James.
0:09:09 > 0:09:13The story goes that while out walking one day in January 1856,
0:09:13 > 0:09:17harpist James James got a tune inside his head.
0:09:17 > 0:09:20He rushed home to tell his father Evan, a keen poet who,
0:09:20 > 0:09:24there and then, on the spur of the moment, wrote down the famous words.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27But how did it become the national anthem?
0:09:27 > 0:09:29The answer lies in a Ponty pub.
0:09:34 > 0:09:39Evan and James James weren't chapelgoers but played in pubs such as this one.
0:09:39 > 0:09:44This is what their famous song might have sounded like when it was first performed.
0:09:55 > 0:09:57- In all its original glory, Gwyn! - Oh, wasn't that lovely?
0:09:57 > 0:09:59- And different.- Yeah, absolutely.
0:09:59 > 0:10:03How did it go from being something sung around Pontypridd
0:10:03 > 0:10:06to being the national anthem of Wales?
0:10:06 > 0:10:10I have read that in the eisteddfod of Llangollen of 1858 that
0:10:10 > 0:10:13John Owen actually sang it there,
0:10:13 > 0:10:15and it became very, very popular
0:10:15 > 0:10:18and he was singing it at various concerts and so on.
0:10:18 > 0:10:22And it became, very, very soon, the popular song.
0:10:22 > 0:10:25It became the national anthem of the eisteddfod
0:10:25 > 0:10:27in a matter of four or five years.
0:10:27 > 0:10:30When was it first played at a rugby international?
0:10:30 > 0:10:32It was sung in 1905 when Wales beat the All Blacks.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36And the story was that, you know, the All Blacks had swept all before them
0:10:36 > 0:10:40and beaten everybody and they came to Cardiff to play Wales
0:10:40 > 0:10:43and the people are saying, "Oh, this haka, it's a great inspiration.
0:10:43 > 0:10:46"I mean, what are we going to do about this?"
0:10:46 > 0:10:49And then there was a letter from a Mr Williams from the Rhondda
0:10:49 > 0:10:50in the Western Mail who said,
0:10:50 > 0:10:54"We ought to sing Mae Hen Fy Nhadau. That'll scare them up a bit."
0:10:54 > 0:10:56And the people did.
0:10:56 > 0:10:59And, apparently, it really struck terror in the hearts
0:10:59 > 0:11:02of the New Zealand players and Wales won.
0:11:06 > 0:11:09For generations, Pontypridd's favourite landmark
0:11:09 > 0:11:11has been the rocking stone.
0:11:11 > 0:11:12It was formed in the last ice age
0:11:12 > 0:11:16when two huge boulders were left perched on top of each other.
0:11:16 > 0:11:17In the 19th century,
0:11:17 > 0:11:21it became the meeting place of the town's druidic society.
0:11:21 > 0:11:26Their leading light was the deeply eccentric Dr William Price.
0:11:26 > 0:11:29He's now best remembered as the man who made cremation legal
0:11:29 > 0:11:34but was also a Chartist, vegetarian, nationalist,
0:11:34 > 0:11:38and builder of these roundhouses for a never-finished museum of Welsh life.
0:11:38 > 0:11:39Was he bonkers?
0:11:39 > 0:11:41No! Gosh, not at all.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44People get this very bad impression of Dr Price over the years.
0:11:44 > 0:11:47And it hasn't been helped by the fact that, certainly, everything
0:11:47 > 0:11:50seems to have been overshadowed by the whole cremation act.
0:11:50 > 0:11:52Everyone thinks of Dr Price and thinks of cremation.
0:11:52 > 0:11:55What they don't remember is the fact that he was 84
0:11:55 > 0:11:58when that happened so it'd been quite a wonderful,
0:11:58 > 0:12:00adventurous and very colourful life up until then.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04Do you think we forgive him his inconsistencies
0:12:04 > 0:12:06because he looked like that?
0:12:06 > 0:12:10It's a wonderful outfit, isn't it? It's so flamboyant and so colourful.
0:12:10 > 0:12:11It's very much like him, I think.
0:12:11 > 0:12:13It kind of shines an awful lot of colour
0:12:13 > 0:12:16on what was a very dark Victorian age, I believe.
0:12:16 > 0:12:20He's certainly someone that should be remembered and honoured,
0:12:20 > 0:12:23I think, in the history of this wonderful town.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27William Price's Pontypridd was the small Welsh-speaking town
0:12:27 > 0:12:29that had been there for 50 years.
0:12:29 > 0:12:32That all changed with the discovery of
0:12:32 > 0:12:34rich seams of coal on the outskirts of town.
0:12:37 > 0:12:40With the opening of the mines,
0:12:40 > 0:12:44there was a huge growth in Pontypridd's population,
0:12:44 > 0:12:49rising from just under 8,000 in 1875 to over 40,000 by 1911.
0:12:54 > 0:12:57There's not much left of the mines that used to ring Pontypridd.
0:12:57 > 0:12:59But here's one that does remain.
0:12:59 > 0:13:02This is the Great Western Colliery in Hopkinstown.
0:13:02 > 0:13:06It closed in 1983 and on the outside there's all this decay.
0:13:06 > 0:13:08But on the inside...
0:13:09 > 0:13:13..is the original steam winding engine, built in 1875,
0:13:13 > 0:13:17the oldest surviving example of its type in the whole of the UK.
0:13:17 > 0:13:21Precision engineered, this was cutting-edge technology
0:13:21 > 0:13:26for its day and has been lovingly restored by a team of volunteers.
0:13:28 > 0:13:32This engine was 50 per cent better than any
0:13:32 > 0:13:37previously installed in South Wales in the year that it was built.
0:13:37 > 0:13:41It could raise 1,000 tonnes in a nine-hour shift,
0:13:41 > 0:13:44a quarter of a million tonnes in a year,
0:13:44 > 0:13:4712 and a half million tonnes in its working life.
0:13:47 > 0:13:52So, really, a very impressive piece of technology
0:13:52 > 0:13:54for the late Victorian period.
0:13:54 > 0:13:58If there was this new coal to be brought up, who dug it out?
0:13:58 > 0:14:00There was a tremendous new influx
0:14:00 > 0:14:05because there wasn't enough of a labour force to man these new mines.
0:14:05 > 0:14:09So lots of people came in from the west of England.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12They came from Gloucester, they came from Hereford.
0:14:12 > 0:14:15Did that change the complexion of Pontypridd?
0:14:15 > 0:14:20In the 1850s and '60s, it was a small, mainly Welsh-speaking town.
0:14:20 > 0:14:22By the early 1900s,
0:14:22 > 0:14:26the congregation of a minister up in the Rhondda,
0:14:26 > 0:14:28who was moving to Pontypridd,
0:14:28 > 0:14:31warned him that he was going to a very English place!
0:14:32 > 0:14:38There was a harsh reality to living and working in Victorian Pontypridd.
0:14:38 > 0:14:44And here at 4pm on Saturday June 23rd, 1894, disaster struck.
0:14:44 > 0:14:47This was the site of the Albion Colliery in Cilfynydd.
0:14:47 > 0:14:50Now it's the home of Pontypridd High School.
0:14:50 > 0:14:52On that Saturday afternoon,
0:14:52 > 0:14:57290 men and boys were killed under ground when coal damp ignited.
0:14:57 > 0:15:01It was the worst Welsh mining disaster of the 19th century.
0:15:01 > 0:15:05For today's students at Pontypridd High School,
0:15:05 > 0:15:07the disaster still has relevance.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10Here we have a plan of a layout of the old colliery
0:15:10 > 0:15:13and there's a sort of macabre detail.
0:15:13 > 0:15:18All these numbers refer to the bodies of the men and boys.
0:15:18 > 0:15:20You're here at the school, guys.
0:15:20 > 0:15:23Were you conscious of what had happened beneath our feet?
0:15:23 > 0:15:25Yeah, of course we were.
0:15:25 > 0:15:27I live in Cilfynydd so I've always been close
0:15:27 > 0:15:29to where the Albion Colliery once stood.
0:15:29 > 0:15:32So I've known a lot about the history since I was a little girl.
0:15:32 > 0:15:35Jamie, does it somehow haunt your generation?
0:15:35 > 0:15:38Yeah, definitely, it's like echoes of it with us now because,
0:15:38 > 0:15:41if you think about it, we're getting an education and we're learning
0:15:41 > 0:15:44where they were working down the mines and they all, you know,
0:15:44 > 0:15:47a lot of them met quite gruesome deaths and things.
0:15:47 > 0:15:51It's quite... it's quite sad to think about it and I suppose we should feel lucky.
0:15:51 > 0:15:53But, at the same time, we should remember them,
0:15:53 > 0:15:55and like Lowri said, keep it on for future generations.
0:15:59 > 0:16:03At the beginning of the 20th century, Pontypridd was a frontier town,
0:16:03 > 0:16:07more akin to the American West than Victorian Britain.
0:16:07 > 0:16:11Growing fast, full of energy, much of the town was built then.
0:16:11 > 0:16:15And, if you look around today, you can still see some of the details.
0:16:27 > 0:16:31This is the town's Tabernacle Welsh Baptist chapel,
0:16:31 > 0:16:33built in 1861, now the town's museum.
0:16:33 > 0:16:36It's currently being refurbished
0:16:36 > 0:16:40and that reveals more evidence of Pontypridd's Edwardian opulence.
0:16:40 > 0:16:43Members of the Cilfynydd Art Society have been involved in
0:16:43 > 0:16:47recreating the colour scheme of the chapel as it was in 1910.
0:16:49 > 0:16:51What's that?
0:16:51 > 0:16:54Well, this is the scrapings that they got from
0:16:54 > 0:16:58the ceiling to give us the shades, the colours that we needed to find.
0:16:59 > 0:17:02But that's a fraction of a...
0:17:02 > 0:17:08Yeah, well, we used a magnifying glass and did the best we could!
0:17:08 > 0:17:12This little bit in the middle, on the original colour scheme,
0:17:12 > 0:17:13was listed as lemon yellow.
0:17:13 > 0:17:18But the sample that we had didn't look like it was actually
0:17:18 > 0:17:21lemon yellow and it wasn't a very clean sample.
0:17:21 > 0:17:25And we decided that a very pale peach, which almost looks yellow,
0:17:25 > 0:17:28works better with the other peaches in the colour scheme.
0:17:28 > 0:17:31- You can't have your peaches clashing!- No!
0:17:33 > 0:17:38And with work on the ceiling going full steam ahead, I had a sneak preview
0:17:38 > 0:17:41to see how the restored paint scheme was working out.
0:17:41 > 0:17:43Wow!
0:17:43 > 0:17:45Wow!
0:17:45 > 0:17:48Suddenly it's on a different scale altogether, isn't it?
0:17:48 > 0:17:50Yeah, you can see how big the ceiling is now.
0:17:50 > 0:17:53Looking very impressive, the bits they've already done.
0:17:53 > 0:17:55I'm terrified of standing up.
0:17:55 > 0:17:58A hundred years of plaster will come down on my head!
0:17:58 > 0:17:59Yeah, be careful not to bash it!
0:17:59 > 0:18:01The scale is just vast
0:18:01 > 0:18:04compared with that sheet of paper you had to work on.
0:18:04 > 0:18:08Yeah, it's fascinating to see it actually coming to life now.
0:18:08 > 0:18:11This is what? The background has been done?
0:18:11 > 0:18:14Yes, this is all the background paint here that's been done.
0:18:14 > 0:18:17This whole panel has been repaired
0:18:17 > 0:18:19and this is a very pale grey-green which has been done so far.
0:18:19 > 0:18:22And these are colours from the 1980s?
0:18:22 > 0:18:26Yeah, these are the ones that we're trying to take
0:18:26 > 0:18:29them back now to the 1910 colours.
0:18:31 > 0:18:33The elaborate detail in the museum's ceiling
0:18:33 > 0:18:37is evidence of Pontypridd's wealth at the beginning of the 20th century.
0:18:37 > 0:18:41Another architectural gem from the Edwardian area
0:18:41 > 0:18:43is the town's market hall.
0:18:44 > 0:18:49Pontypridd's market has always been a central part of the town's life.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52It was first established in the early 19th century and,
0:18:52 > 0:18:54as the town grew in importance, so did the market.
0:18:54 > 0:18:57For much of the 20th century,
0:18:57 > 0:19:01Pontypridd market was THE shopping centre for people of the valleys.
0:19:08 > 0:19:11Even in the 1960s, the market was still thriving,
0:19:11 > 0:19:15perhaps because you could buy mini-skirts there by the inch.
0:19:15 > 0:19:17# Oh, I've got a sheet for my bed and a pillow for my head
0:19:17 > 0:19:19# I've got a pencil full of lead... #
0:19:19 > 0:19:22These days, it retains its charm but is much quieter,
0:19:22 > 0:19:27a victim of the supermarkets that have sprung up on the outskirts of town.
0:19:27 > 0:19:30But Pontypridd wasn't all about working and shopping.
0:19:30 > 0:19:34There were over a dozen Italian cafes in town.
0:19:35 > 0:19:39And, at its heart, a special place to take time off.
0:19:40 > 0:19:45This is Ynysangharad Park, opened in 1920 with cricket,
0:19:45 > 0:19:47golf, tennis, the bandstand.
0:19:47 > 0:19:50All there for public relaxation
0:19:50 > 0:19:54although there is one place that is off-limits to the public.
0:20:11 > 0:20:13At the heart of the park is this, the lido.
0:20:13 > 0:20:20It was built in 1927 and once rang to the sounds of Pontypridd at play.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29It's the last of its kind in Wales.
0:20:29 > 0:20:33And the process has begun to find the funds to restore it.
0:20:33 > 0:20:36Wouldn't it be wonderful to see it as it once was?
0:20:47 > 0:20:50From this energetic, feisty town,
0:20:50 > 0:20:53it's not surprising that sporting heroes emerged.
0:20:53 > 0:20:56Pontypridd Rugby Club was founded in 1876.
0:20:56 > 0:20:59They're still going strong, although perhaps they'll never be
0:20:59 > 0:21:03the heart and soul of the Welsh game as they were ten years ago.
0:21:03 > 0:21:07They've produced some outstanding players
0:21:07 > 0:21:09like Neil Jenkins and Martyn Williams.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12Rugby has historical strength.
0:21:12 > 0:21:17But 100 years ago, the most famous son from Pontypridd was a boxer.
0:21:17 > 0:21:19Freddie Welsh was a local hero
0:21:19 > 0:21:24and world lightweight champion between 1911 and 1917.
0:21:24 > 0:21:28But Ponty's boxing clubs weren't only about fighting.
0:21:28 > 0:21:31They helped raise the money to build the town's cottage hospital
0:21:31 > 0:21:33which opened in 1911.
0:21:35 > 0:21:39In the years before the founding of the NHS, cottage hospitals
0:21:39 > 0:21:43like the one in Pontypridd provided the best health care for working people.
0:21:43 > 0:21:47This rare film archive shows the hospital in action in 1935.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50But, sadly, the well cared-for patients in these shots
0:21:50 > 0:21:52were the lucky few.
0:21:54 > 0:21:58For the less fortunate, there was only one place to go - the workhouse.
0:21:58 > 0:22:01Although it was demolished in the 1970s
0:22:01 > 0:22:04to make way for the Dewi Sant Hospital,
0:22:04 > 0:22:10Pontypridd's workhouse still sends a shudder through the town's history.
0:22:10 > 0:22:15Someone who knows all about this is Pontypridd-born novelist Catrin Collier,
0:22:15 > 0:22:19whose grandmother was a nurse in the workhouse's infirmary.
0:22:19 > 0:22:24Catrin researched her family history as the basis for her novels.
0:22:24 > 0:22:29Workhouse - it's like a word from some dark history.
0:22:29 > 0:22:33I'd associate it with Dickens and I assumed that from about the 1880s on,
0:22:33 > 0:22:37the world had become more enlightened. It certainly hadn't.
0:22:37 > 0:22:41Right up until the end of the Second World War, I think,
0:22:41 > 0:22:44the workhouses were regarded as a repository
0:22:44 > 0:22:47for anybody who couldn't afford to keep themselves.
0:22:47 > 0:22:52Widows, children, families where the husband was too ill to work,
0:22:52 > 0:22:56people who were mentally or physically incapable
0:22:56 > 0:22:59of working in some way, they ended up in the workhouse,
0:22:59 > 0:23:03where they were expected to work 12 hours a day for three meals.
0:23:03 > 0:23:05Was it a brutal regime?
0:23:05 > 0:23:08It was very, very harsh. The food was minimal.
0:23:08 > 0:23:12My grandmother apparently got into trouble with the authorities
0:23:12 > 0:23:15and the soup that the workhouse inmates were given was actually
0:23:15 > 0:23:18the water that the vegetables had been boiled in.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21And she agitated, got into trouble for agitating,
0:23:21 > 0:23:24but, eventually, some of the vegetables were left in the water.
0:23:24 > 0:23:28And when they pulled it down and put up the Dewi Sant Hospital,
0:23:28 > 0:23:30didn't some of that linger on?
0:23:30 > 0:23:33It never lost its reputation.
0:23:33 > 0:23:36My father made me promise that he'd never have to go into
0:23:36 > 0:23:38what he called the workhouse.
0:23:38 > 0:23:41But when he broke his leg, he had no choice. He had to go into Dewi Sant.
0:23:41 > 0:23:44And the wonderful consultant who runs Dewi Sant,
0:23:44 > 0:23:47he used to practically greet all the old people
0:23:47 > 0:23:49as they came in and said, "This is not the workhouse.
0:23:49 > 0:23:51"We do look after people,"
0:23:51 > 0:23:53and, I must admit, it is a superb hospital
0:23:53 > 0:23:57and the staff there really, really do look after the geriatric patients.
0:23:57 > 0:24:01Whether you were in the workhouse or not, the period between the wars
0:24:01 > 0:24:05in Pontypridd and the rest of the valleys was grim.
0:24:05 > 0:24:07During the depression of the 1930s,
0:24:07 > 0:24:11the unemployment rate in the town was over 75 percent.
0:24:13 > 0:24:15The government was largely inactive
0:24:15 > 0:24:18but there were attempts to bring new jobs to depressed areas
0:24:18 > 0:24:22and one of those was just outside Pontypridd, in Treforest.
0:24:26 > 0:24:30This is part of the great expanse of the Treforest industrial estate,
0:24:30 > 0:24:33one of the first of its kind to be built in Britain.
0:24:33 > 0:24:37It opened in 1937 and was designed to create jobs
0:24:37 > 0:24:39in light industry such as textiles,
0:24:39 > 0:24:42some of them run by refugees from fascism.
0:24:44 > 0:24:48During the Second World War, as industries were moved out of cities
0:24:48 > 0:24:52and away from the bombing, the Treforest estate was a hive of activity.
0:24:52 > 0:24:56The buzz continued into the 1940s and 1950s with new electronics
0:24:56 > 0:24:59and clothes factories starting up.
0:24:59 > 0:25:03Working in the glove factory, there was one Thomas Woodward,
0:25:03 > 0:25:05soon, under his stage name of Tom Jones,
0:25:05 > 0:25:08to become Pontypridd's most famous son.
0:25:13 > 0:25:16Pontypridd has produced a number of great singers,
0:25:16 > 0:25:21including opera stars Sir Geraint Evans and Stuart Burrows,
0:25:21 > 0:25:25but it's Tom Jones who's most associated with the town.
0:25:25 > 0:25:28And the town remains close to Tom's heart.
0:25:28 > 0:25:33He has a red Pontypridd phone box in his Bel-Air mansion and, in 2005,
0:25:33 > 0:25:38played a triumphant homecoming concert in Ynysangharad Park.
0:25:38 > 0:25:40Tom Jones lived in this house in Laura Street
0:25:40 > 0:25:42and the street has another claim to fame.
0:25:42 > 0:25:47The mother-in-law of the former president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, also lived here.
0:25:47 > 0:25:49Imagine the street parties.
0:25:49 > 0:25:51Since the 1960s,
0:25:51 > 0:25:55many of Pontypridd's traditional industries have been closing down.
0:25:55 > 0:25:58The mines, the chainworks have gone.
0:25:58 > 0:26:01There are new employers, the University of Glamorgan,
0:26:01 > 0:26:05even Doctor Who, which was filmed on the industrial state in Treforest.
0:26:05 > 0:26:07But there is one small company
0:26:07 > 0:26:10that everybody associates with Pontypridd.
0:26:14 > 0:26:17Groggs was founded in 1965 by artist John Hughes,
0:26:17 > 0:26:20and over the years their models of Welsh rugby heroes have become
0:26:20 > 0:26:23almost as famous as the players themselves.
0:26:23 > 0:26:26The statues are now made by John's son Richard, who continues
0:26:26 > 0:26:30the family tradition for meticulous attention to detail.
0:26:38 > 0:26:43So it started out, Richard, as artwork, more than the figures?
0:26:43 > 0:26:46Yeah, Dad's idea was to be the Picasso of Pontypridd, really.
0:26:46 > 0:26:49He didn't really think about rugby as such.
0:26:49 > 0:26:51He just wanted to make things.
0:26:51 > 0:26:54But the rugby giants, they were all based on..
0:26:54 > 0:26:56Mabinogion characters, yeah.
0:26:56 > 0:26:59So he just one day switched those giants with clubs
0:26:59 > 0:27:02and things like that into rugby players.
0:27:02 > 0:27:05I suppose with people like Mervyn Davies and Gareth Edwards...
0:27:05 > 0:27:09Great characters, absolutely. They were born to be Groggs, really.
0:27:09 > 0:27:12We still get characters like that now.
0:27:12 > 0:27:15- Well, they were almost caricatures in the flesh.- They were, where they?
0:27:15 > 0:27:20I came into the business and started concentrating on faces
0:27:20 > 0:27:22and trying to refine them.
0:27:22 > 0:27:23Have you got a favourite?
0:27:23 > 0:27:26Neil. Neil Jenkins.
0:27:26 > 0:27:28But, I mean, to us, they're all favourites,
0:27:28 > 0:27:30they're all heroes, you know.
0:27:30 > 0:27:32And it is very important to us that we've stayed here.
0:27:32 > 0:27:35We haven't decided to go somewhere else where, you know,
0:27:35 > 0:27:38we could probably make a lot more money but this is it.
0:27:38 > 0:27:41This is our heart and soul, really, Ponty.
0:27:41 > 0:27:46And on the statue marking the 2010 captain's climb of Kilimanjaro,
0:27:46 > 0:27:49I spotted a familiar face.
0:27:49 > 0:27:53An old man, an old goat on Mount Kilimanjaro,
0:27:53 > 0:27:56buried in the middle, being pulled up, pushed up.
0:27:58 > 0:28:01Pontypridd has changed a lot in the last 30 years.
0:28:01 > 0:28:03When the A470 was built,
0:28:03 > 0:28:07it split the town in two and it lost some of its identity.
0:28:07 > 0:28:12Now many of its people work and shop down the road in Cardiff.
0:28:12 > 0:28:15But there's also a rich seam of defiance here.
0:28:15 > 0:28:20This old shopping centre from the 1970s has been demolished
0:28:20 > 0:28:22and a new one will take its place.
0:28:24 > 0:28:26This is a relatively new town
0:28:26 > 0:28:30but there is a deep-rooted sense of belonging here.
0:28:30 > 0:28:32From Ponty and proud of it, they say.
0:28:32 > 0:28:37Pontypridd is very much its own place and has its own future.
0:28:37 > 0:28:40The investment that is going into Pontypridd now
0:28:40 > 0:28:42should've probably happened about 20 years ago.
0:28:42 > 0:28:44But now at least it is happening and, hopefully,
0:28:44 > 0:28:46when some of the roadworks are done,
0:28:46 > 0:28:49then, you know, it should be a vibrant market town again.
0:28:49 > 0:28:53I'm saddened to see the way it's becoming, the way it's going
0:28:53 > 0:28:55but I want it to come back as it used to be
0:28:55 > 0:28:58because I'm extremely proud to be from Ponty.
0:28:58 > 0:29:03I'm normally wearing my Pontypridd rugby shirt when I'm working!
0:29:03 > 0:29:06I've got a picture of the bridge on my bedroom wall,
0:29:06 > 0:29:08I'm that proud of it.
0:29:08 > 0:29:14# Yes, they'll all come to see me
0:29:14 > 0:29:19# In the shade of that old oak tree
0:29:19 > 0:29:28- # As they lay me 'neath the green, green grass of home.- #
0:29:28 > 0:29:31Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd