Ton Pentre

Ton Pentre, in common with a number of the villages of the Rhondda, derives its name from a farm, which stood on the land pre-industrialisation. The farm, and a few cottages clustered around it were known as ‘Y Ton', Ton being the welsh word for meadow. The village that grew up was originally referred to as Ton, but later became known as Ton Pentre to distinguish it from Tonypandy. Indeed in the 1906 ‘Kelly's Directory of South Wales' the town is referred to as Ton or Ton Pentre or Ton Ystrad. The 1847 tithe map of the area shows the land as being owned by the Crawshay Bailey estate and farmed by tenants such as Evan Jenkins and Mary Bailey, at Ton farm and Tyr Yr Eglwys respectively.

Tyr Yr Eglwys being named for the only other building of note in the area at that time, the parish church of St. John's (Eglwys being the Welsh word for church). Records show that a place of Christian worship existed on this site from as early as possibly the sixth or seventh century. Ton also boasted another large church, that of St. David a chapel of ease to St. Johns. This was erected in 1881 by Crawshay Bailey at a cost of £6,000, and had room for 550 worshippers. Another notable building in Ton Pentre was the ‘Ocean Collieries, Maindy and Eastern Workmen's library' in Church Road. This was erected by the workmen of the Maindy and Eastern pits and opened in 1895 at a cost of £4,000.

Ton Pentre, for a time, also boasted its very own golf course where a future King of England was to play a round in 1924. An impression of how busy each of the little ‘townships' of The Rhondda were in the latter half of the 19th and early part of the 20th century can be seen from the listings for Ton Pentre in the 1901 Kelly's Directory. The commercial listing for Ton Pentre included, amongst others, 8 butchers, 2 dress makers, 3 hair dressers, 9 grocers, 3 greengrocers, 10 shopkeepers, 6 tailors, 4 boot makers, 4 public houses, a cab proprietor, a blacksmith, 3 builders and contractors, a carter, a farmer, a news agent, 2 iron and brass founders, a chemist and druggist as well as the Ton Industrial Co-Operative Society.

Ton Pentre Golf Club

In the early 1920's on a piece of mountain above Ton Pentre, known as ‘Waun Ton Pentre' where children had for years played football, a small band of local miners began to set up a very basic golf course. They had managed to collect a few second hand golf clubs, and were given a few acres of mountainside on which to play. For the first year the course consisted of four holes cut with ex-service jack knives in each corner of the pitch, with no greens or tees. At this time the Ocean Area Recreation Union was formed, and succeeded in negotiating with the Ocean Coal Company and the Crawshay Bailey Estate, extending the course to some fifty acres and securing for the members a direct lease on the land. The club held its first annual meeting in the drawing room of a local minister, and local miners volunteered their time to set up this new expanded course, which included setting mountain fires to clear the rough grass on the new course. Grants from the Miners Welfare fund, and members' subscriptions, allowed for the hiring of a dedicated groundsman , which in time led to improved greens and tees for this nine hole course. The club thrived, membership rose and an old barn was converted to a pavilion for players.

Then in May 1924 came the club's proudest moment, when His Royal Highness the Duke of York, later King George VI, agreed to play a foursome match there against Mr. Frank Hodges M.P. On the 17th May huge crowds turned out to see the future King, play a round of golf on what had until recently been a bare patch of mountainside, The Duke eventually losing the match. Although the club thrived for a number of years by 1960 local historian Arthur Hazzard describes the course as having been abandoned for several years, and as having reverted to farming use.

With the success of the Institute it was decided to expand the original premises and thus in 1904 a workmen's hall attached to the Institute was opened. Mrs. Jenkins of Ystradfechan performed the opening ceremony and the key to the hall was presented to her by the daughter of the architect Jacob Rees. By 1908 the trustees had begun to rent the hall out to a private company for the showing of ‘animated pictures ‘or early silent movies. Very quickly the committee and trustees of the hall realised the profits that could be made from this enterprise and saw it as ‘their duty that Institute members reaped the rewards'. As such they started to show moving pictures themselves, using the profits gained to set up a relief fund to 'alleviate the distress of sick and disabled workmen'.

The cinema was converted in 1931 with the installation of a ‘talkie' machine enabling it to show talking pictures, developments such as ‘Cinemascope' and stereophonic sound were also pioneered in the Rhondda at the Hall. The Institute and Hall suffered in the 1940's with the closure of the local mines and the subsequent dwindling of revenue from miners' contributions. Changing it's name to the Ton Pentre Workmen's Hall and Institute it continued to show films until 1971 whereupon it changed its usage to a bingo hall. This itself closed in 1989, leaving the Hall derelict until in 1991 when it was reopened as a cinema under the new name of ‘The Phoenix'.