Street names you won’t find on map

I WAS recently perusing a map of the South Wales Valleys when it occurred to me that many of the street names, so beloved of the cartographer’s art, were lacking in a certain descriptive clarity.

In my own part of the Rhondda encompassing Cwmparc, Treorchy, Ynyswen, Treherbert and Penyrenglyn, there are streets and areas that have more poetic names, and the reasons why they were called as such. You won’t find them on any map, mind you.

Chepstow Road in Cwmparc was, and still is, known as ‘Mutton Tump’ (sheep would wander in and never walk out during World War II). Another name for the top of Tynebedw Terrace in Treorchy was Monkey Island, because the only trees left standing in a pit-propped valley were located there.

My own father is from The Sidings in Treherbert, named after the coal wagon marshalling area.

Names such as The Gates (border twixt Treorchy and Ynyswen) are still used. They have, however, taken on a certain arcane resonance lately.

The younger of our villagers look bewildered when Tub Row – Railway Terrace in Cwmparc (called so because tin baths were hung out in the front of houses); or Packman’s Puzzle – a row of houses in Tallis Street, Cwmparc, that was built with back doors facing the main street, are mentioned. Same, too, with Patagonia Gardens (allotments so far away on Bwlch Y Clawdd that the Argentinian Welsh enclave took on a whole new meaning) and Shepherd’s Row – named for the family, not the occupation of the residents.

So the next time you visit the upper Rhondda Fawr, remember names such as The Ranch or Ponderosa (Bryn Rhedyn) and the unforgettable Mulligan’s Mansions, a place of toughness in Cwmparc without which this missive wouldn’t have been possible at all. IA Price Cwmparc