HOLE LOT OF
‘Lawless’ part of the Valleys that played
HIGH in the mountains of Blaenau Gwent is a stretch of land once described by historians as one of the most lawless parts of Wales. From large Neolithic burial cairns, to hidden rebel caves, the barren moors overlooking Wales’ highest village of Trefil is a land steeped in history and folklore.
But it’s the area’s part in the Chartist uprising of 1839, where rebels stored their weapons in a series of caves ahead of their attack on Newport, that make it so well known .
To many of the tourists who walk here it is viewed as a place of mystery and excitement.
However, to others it is seen as an area that was essential to the birth of democracy for working class people across the whole of the UK.
Either way, just minutes after leaving a rugged dirt track out of Trefil, you are immediately struck by the isolation you find yourself in, with miles of empty mountains surrounding you on all sides.
It is a beautiful and unforgiving landscape that has attracted people for thousands of years, with some of Wales’ earliest inhabitants, known as the Beaker People, leaving a series of large prehistoric burial cairns dotted across the land.
Alyson Tippings is the Officer for Tourism in Blaenau Gwent and said she is never more happy than when walking in the area – now named as a protected site of scientific interest by the Welsh Government.
She said: “It’s just so beautiful up here and when you look at the history that surrounds you then it really is quite remarkable.
“Of course we can see from the burial mounds that ancient hunter gatherers and farmers have been walking the mountains of Gwent for thousands of years before any sort of civilisation, but more recently it played a major role in the Chartist uprising in
Wales throughout the 1800s.
“This whole area would have been well used by rebels back then, as well as a good many other people who didn’t want to be found.
“Working class people who were tired of being ruled by an elite upper class came here to plan their uprising in a place that was outside the reach of the law, where they knew they wouldn’t be caught.
“Desperate iron workers and coal miners in towns such as Tredegar, Nantyglo and Blaina made up the bulk of this movement in the fight for voting rights, and went about storing guns and pikes in the cave ready for an attack on Newport in 1839.”
The subsequent rebellion took place on Monday, November 4, 1839, when more than 10,000 people from the valleys of South Wales marched on Newport in a show of solidarity for the Chartists in their battle for social change.
When soldiers fired on the crowd a gun battle broke out, leading to the death of 22 people, and sparking a nationwide fight for change that
would eventually see all men given the right to vote.
While many of the celebrations for this movement are still held in Newport to this day, life-long Trefil resident Tippings thinks the seeds of this revolution were actually sown much closer to her home in this notoriously lawless stretch of mountains in Blaenau Gwent.
She smiles as she ambles through the spacious cave, and admits that being here now still gives her the same amount of excitement as when she was a girl.
“This cave is a very significant place in the history of Wales and in the whole of the UK for that matter, so it’s important that we remember the part it played,” she said.
“What happened in Newport and other parts of the country at the time were a direct result of what the people planned and discussed here, and residents of Blaenau Gwent should be very proud of that.
“Our ancestors stood up for what was right, and the democracy we take for granted today came as a result of it.”
But there’s a more gruesome side to this tale that is less well known.
Dismembered skeletons have also been discovered in and around the Chartist cave near Trefil over the years, believed to be those of so called squealers who paid the price for the Chartist secrets they passed on to the law.
Signs local archaeologist Ian Fewings says show the amount of danger and discontent there was in this part of the Valleys at the time.
He said: “There was definitely a lot of discontent from workers here during this period, many of whom were desperate to break the hold of their working masters, and willing to do whatever it took to make a change.
“There’s some debate as to whether this area was completely lawless but one thing’s for sure, when you were up here in these mountains, you’re truly on your own. It was a much more brutal time back then, but ultimately is a time we can look back on now as very significant to who we are today.”