Rhyd-y-car: Miner’s Homes Through Time

This terrace is originally from Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales. It was built around 1795 by the ironmaster Richard Crawshay to house his ironworkers. By 1850 the iron boom was past its peak, and coal mining was beginning to replace it as the largest employer. 

Most men on the terrace continued to be employed in the coal mines until the 1960s. In the 1970s unemployment rose and people moved out of the houses, leaving many empty. A flood in 1979 led to the last residents leaving. 

It was moved to St Fagans National Museum of History and opened in 1987.

You can see the front of the cottages, separated from their gardens by a narrow yard known as a ‘bailey’. From left to right they are displayed as they may have looked in 1805, 1855, 1895, 1925, 1955 and 1985. 

There were two terraces with a total of 29 houses at the original Rhyd-y-car site. 

The gardens were narrow, but long and would be important to the people who lived here. They were used for growing a variety of vegetables and nearly every resident would have kept a pig. This was fed on any waste from the house and was an important source of meat for the family.

By 1895 the houses had toilets in the garden, shared with their next door neighbor. Before that the houses had no toilets. A tin bath is hanging on the side of the toilet wall. People would wash themselves in this bath in front of the fire inside the house. 

The coal used for fires was kept in a coal shed in the front garden. The sheds were big enough to keep enough coal to last for a few weeks. 

This cottage is furnished as the home of a young family who moved from west Wales to work in the iron ore mine. Iron workers were at the top of the working class. The houses had to be good enough to attract workers to serve in Crawshay’s company. 

Each house contains a living room with a bedroom above.

At the back is a small pantry, where the cooking equipment and food were kept, and a bedroom. The houses were better than the farm cottages were used to living in. The lack of fresh air and no toilets would have been nothing new to them.

The hand-made oak furniture comes from west Wales. It would have been given to a young couple as wedding presents. The iron ore miners belonged to the upper working class, and could afford to buy luxury goods.

The fire was used for cooking, heating water and drying clothes. Food would be cooked in a pot above the fire. Most of the baking would have been done on the bakestone, the flat round piece of iron to the left of the fire. On the fireplace is an iron kettle for boiling water.

To get to the upstairs bedroom there is a steep circular staircase next to the fireplace. The small door is to a cupboard under the stairs. The upstairs bedroom was where the children slept. The parents slept in the small bedroom downstairs.

In 1805 working class people used wooden bowls, plates and spoons to prepare and eat their food. These would have been brought with them from the country.

In 1925 the best furniture was placed on the side facing the door so it would be seen through the open door. This was known as the ‘best side’. This half of the room also has a lino flooring to cover the flag stones instead of rag mats. 

In 1925, the walls in the main room were covered in wallpaper rather than painted. The fireplace was still used for cooking. The houses now had running water so they no longer had to go to the communal water pump to collect water.

This clock was used for timing racing pigeons. Pigeon racing was a popular hobby in 1925. A specially trained racing pigeon at a set distance from your home and timing how long it took them to return home.

Photography was invented in the 1800s but was expensive. By 1925 photography had become cheaper. Family photographs were common in working class houses and were used to decorate the walls.

This framed photograph is a memorial to a soldier who died in the War. Above it are his war medals. Around 32,000 men from Wales died in the War. Families all over Wales would have had personal memorials like this to a lost relative.

This is a removable beam in the ceiling and floor boards in the room above. It was big enough to move large pieces of furniture upstairs, and to bring dead bodies down from the bedroom. Without the coffin drop this would not be possible as the staircase was narrow and steep. 

The houses were condemned by the local authority in 1935 but families continued to live there until the late 1970s. By 1955 some improvements had been made such as retiling the roofs with slate tiles and adding an electricity supply.

The back of the house was now a kitchenette and child’s room and the main bedroom was upstairs. Most people still worked in the coal mines but the number of people working new factories nearby was increasing. 

TV was invented in the 1920s, but most homes didn’t have one until the 1950s. Many bought TVs to watch Queen Elizabeth ll’s coronation, televised in 1953. TV screens were black and white and a big magnifying glass was used in front of the small screen to make the image bigger. 

It wasn’t common for houses to have electricity in Wales until after the Second World War. By 1955, houses had light bulbs which gave a brighter, longer lasting light. Unlike modern energy saving light bulbs these would get very hot. 

The living room in the house was kept for special occasions such as family gatherings. It had the nicest furniture, such as the fully padded armchair.

Even though the fireplace dates from 1795 it is no longer used for cooking but to heat the house on cold days.

The back of the house has been converted from a kitchenette and bedroom into a kitchen. It has been fitted out with modern electrical appliances you would expect to see in kitchens today. 

These made cooking much quicker and easier than it had been in the previous decades. The dining table is in the kitchen, allowing more space for relaxing in the living room. The house has plumbing and hot water so there is no need to heat water on the fire. 

As the house is still very small a bath has been added to the kitchen instead of adding a bathroom to the house. The bath has a wooden cover which can be used as a table when the bath is not in use. This would have made a nice change to washing in a tin bath in front of the fire

Microwave ovens use microwave radiation to heat up the food and were first invented in the late 1940s. The first ones were nearly 1.8m tall and very expensive. By the 1980s they were common in kitchens as they were affordable and much smaller.

Electric washing machines were first invented in the 1900s. Automatic washing machines, like this one, were not common in homes until the 1970s. It no longer took a day to hand-wash clothes. 

They could now just be loaded into the machine and left to wash, saving a lot of time and effort.

Electric fridges for homes were first invented in 1914 but were very expensive. By the 1960s fridges were an essential part of the kitchen. They allowed fresh food such as dairy, meat and vegetables to be kept for much longer. People no longer had to go shopping every day.