NOSTALGIA: Torfaen s history as the cradle of Welsh industry freepressseries.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from freepressseries.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Torfaen Museum
Micah Lewis, seated on the right, who was head packer at Town Forge in Pontypool for over 30 years, taken in 1920. Picture: Torfaen Museum. IN THE early nineteenth century, Molly Hanbury Leigh of Pontypool House introduced some regeneration and landscaping of Pontypool Park, including the building of the Shell Grotto, Rustic Arbour, picnic features along the brook, kitchen gardens and palm houses, a new stable block (now the museum) and other features - as was the garden fashion of the day. As part of the landscaping, it was decided that the forge in the park would have to be removed to another site and so it was closed down in the park (now the site of Pontypool RFC) and moved across the river to the town behind Osborne Road (the area now the site of Riverside car park and adjacent housing) – utilising the water from the Afon Lwyd, like its sister Osborne Forge further up river at Pontnewynydd.