Arthur Davies

Lower Old Houses – Garn-yr-erw by Arthur J. Davies (b.1921)

These were a row of four small cottages a few hundred yards up the hillside from the Blaenavon- Brynmawr road behind Fair View and Fair Mount (the Black Ranks).

Originally they were a farmhouse and three outhouses. The outhouse nearest the farm was a cattle shed, next a stable and the end one was a barn and feed store. The outhouses were converted into cottages by the Blaenavon Company when they needed accommodation for the men coming to the village to work in the coalmine and their families.

My family lived in No. 3, next to the farm. My Grandfather became the first tenant when he moved to Garn-yr-erw from Cwmyoy. My father was born in the cottage and eventually he took over the tenancy when he married my Mother and we became a family of seven living in this small cottage with only very basic facilities. My father told us a story about the farmer and his wife, who lived next door, which we found very hard to believe.

It appears that the farmer was very fond of beer and after his frequent visits to ‘The Whistle’, the local inn, he would come home rather drunk. One night in particular, when he came home in a bad state his wife was very annoyed and told him so and she kept on and on so much that he opened the enjoining door to the cattle shed and drove a cow into the kitchen and said “talk to that!”

Some years later my Mother wanted to repaper the wall between our cottage and the farmhouse. Because the wall was so rough my eldest sister’s husband, being a plasterer by trade, offered to re-plaster the wall and when he knocked the old plaster there was the frame of the doorway and the space blocked up, proving the story was true.