| Green Fach (Green Street), Aberdare | |
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These two images, one taken at the turn of the Twentieth Century and the other in 2003, are a dramatic illustration of the changes to the Greenfach area in the intervening years. The landmarks of Siloa Chapel, and the towers of St Elvan's Church and the Constitutional Club can be identified in both photographs, but little else remains the same. Crown buildings now stand on the site of Gadlys Row on the left of the photograph, whilst on the right Dare Place, Dare Street and Chapel Street have been demolished and the site has become a car park. |
| In 1961 work was undertaken to clear the Greenfach area to develop a new library and municipal buildings. The Green Dragon Inn, which had been open since at least 1835, and several streets and other buildings were destroyed. Greenfach was constructed on the site of the old Aberdare Village in the 1840's and 1850's, at the same time as much of the Town centre was developed. Greenfach soon developed a reputation as the least savoury area of the town. In the 1853 report by Thomas Webster Rammell on sanitary conditions in Aberdare, Greenfach was described as a location; "where there are a large number of houses crowded together upon a very limited space, without any street paving, drainage of any kind, or ventilation. These houses have, most of them, been lately built." Greenfach also became identified with criminal and bawdy behaviour in the Nineteenth Century |
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Dare Street decorated for the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in May 1937. The photograph reveals the small size of the houses built in Greenfach and their close proximity to one another. Many of the houses constructed in the mid Nineteenth Century would have been built cheaply, using undressed stone and with shallow foundations. It was for these reasons that the houses in Greenfach were cleared in the early 1960's. |