Welsh Houses

October 7, 2005

Sounds similar to mine, my bathroom is downstairs also. There are 4 humans and 2 cats in ours, how many in yours?

The Valley Vegan...........

At y blewyn To a tee jo <jo.heartwork wrote:

From what I have seen on the telly most American homes seem to be quite large. Ours was built for farm workers. It was originally a sitting room, kitchen and two bedrooms - with a loo at the end of the garden. It has since been changed to have a downstairs bathroom (none upstairs) and divided one bedroom to make three. We do however have a fair sized front garden and large back garden, and a lovely view.

Jo

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peter hurd

Friday, October 07, 2005 9:05 PM

Re: Re: gardening

Most welsh housing is a remnant of its mining heritage, when communities sprang up around the coal mines. The easiest way of accomodating the workers was to build streets of terraced houses/cottages all joined in a row. My house was built over 110 years ago, and like all the other houses was originally a 2 up 2 down ( rooms that is ), It has had an extension built since those days to provide a kitchen and another bedroom, and an extension downstairs on the extension to provide a bathroom.This means that we all have a bedroom, have 1 living room, kitchen, and a bathroom.

The front door opens straight onto the street, at the back I have a small garden.

AT THE turn of the 19th century only 600,000 people lived in Wales, but by 1901 this figure had almost quadrupled to over two million. This population boom is impressive enough, but it was far from uniform across Wales. Most rural counties saw only modest population increase (Cardiganshire, for example swelled from 43,000 to 61,000 over the century), but the South Wales Valleys saw massive leaps in population, with Glamorgan witnessing a ten- fold increase from 71,000 to 860,000 a century later.

Welsh heavy industry was in its heyday. It was Welsh slate that roofed houses the world over, Welsh coal that fired the industrial revolution, and Welsh products in iron, steel, copper and tin that helped build modern Britain. All these industrial workers needed housing, and it no surprise therefore that there was a lot of building going on in 19th century Wales.

The result, of course, was distinctive rows of terraced homes seen in the South Wales Valleys, in the slate mining areas of Gwynedd and in any town where industry required speedily-built housing for workers and their families.

This is a typical ( same as mine ) house in the South Wales Valleys.

The picture shows each house is the width of the average crap motor! having one front door, one downstairs window and two upstairs windows at the front.

A bit different to your average American family home eh?

The Valley Vegan.................

Hawdd cynnau tan ar hen aelwyd It is easy to kindle a fire on an old hearth

earthstrm <nikkimack wrote:

Hi Peter>> Wish I lived there, youve obviously never seen the terraced housing in the Welsh valleys! Think yourself lucky!> Oh I do! It's small, but it's mine. And we have a beautiful backyard. No closets, no storage and we are always next to each other, but it is not that bad. And again, it's mine!What are the Welsh Valley houses like?Nikki

Peter H

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