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On his visit with us, Phil Rowlands brought us a great little statue of a coal miner and a little girl. It's called "The Welcome," it's carved out of Welsh coal and has a plaque on it which says it's part of the "Coal Heritage Collection." You can find these on Welsh gift sites but I wasn't able to find out who makes them. It's a great little statute and it's cool to hold it here in Oregon and know it's made of real Welsh coal.

I loaded up an image of the whole piece and three close-ups. Click on the pix to see full size. Because it's all black and shiny, it was a fun challenge to light and shoot to get any detail!

I have to massively thank Chris Keil, who brought us a whole fifth of delicious Penderyn Welsh whisky, and, amazingly, there was still some left when the guys all flew out of town. If you haven't ever had this, it's really good and smooth. And Mike Jenkins, who gave my daughter, Aria, an avid reader, a signed copy of his new book, Question Island , from Alun Books in Port Talbot, which she was very happy to get and took in to school to show off the next day.

The legend of Madog discovering America over three hundred years before Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas on October 12th 1492. 

According to the story, Madog was a Prince of Gwynedd, who in 1170 sailed westward across the Atlantic and landed on the American shore. He returned to Gwynedd to recruit settlers and left, never to be seen again. The settlers supposedly travelled up the great rivers before settling down in the Midwest and intermarrying with a Native American tribe.

References to Madog discovery of America; 

*  A site on Rose Island, Kentucky, is claimed as once being home to a colony of  Welsh-speaking Indians.

*   The references to a seafaring Madog were used during the Elizabethan era to bolster British claims in America. The earliest surviving account to make the claim that Madog had come to America appears in Humphrey Llwyd's unpublished 1559 Cronica Walliae. John Dee then used this manuscript when he submitted a treatise the "Title Royal" to Queen Elizabeth in 1580  

* During the first English navigation of the James River in 1607, Welshman Peter Wynne, wrote that some of the pronunciation of the Monacan language resembled "Welch".

*  Another encounter with a Welsh-speaking Indian was claimed by the Reverend Morgan Jones, who said that he had been captured in 1669 by a tribe of Tuscarora called the Deog, whose chief spared his life when he heard Jones speak Welsh, a language he understood.

*  Francis Lewis, a signer of the American Declaration of Independence is said to have had a conversation with an Indian chief who spoke Welsh,

*  Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States believed the "Madoc story" to be true.

*  Llewellyn Harris, the missionary who visited the Zuni tribe in 1878, wrote that they had many Welsh words in their language. 

The Battle of Hatfield Chase was fought on 12th October 633, near Doncaster.  It resulted in a decisive victory for an alliance of Gwynedd and Mercia led by Cadwallon ap Cadfan and Penda against Northumbria led by Edwin.

The period following the collapse of Roman rule in Britain  left the Celtic Britons to fend for themselves.  There appears to have been an on-going struggle for territory as kingdoms wrestled and allied themselves with other kingdoms, to define their borders.  In the area we now know as Wales, apart fom the internal conflict between the indigineous kingdoms, they had to deal with incursions from the Irish and the emerging threat of the Anglo Saxon expansion from what is now England.  In particular, the areas of Powys, Gwent and Gwynedd were constantly threatened by the Anglo Saxon kingdoms of Mercia, Northumbria and Wessex.  The Battle of Hatfield Chase is typical of the inter-kingdom rivalry of the time.

A timeline of significant events in the build up to and the aftermath of The Battle of Hatfield Chase;

c.623 - Edwin is baptised at the Royal Court of Gwynedd.

625 - King Cadfan of Gwynedd dies and his son Cadwallon ap Cadfan succeeds him. 

c.626 -  A rivalry between Edwin  and Cadwallon, which has grown since childhood, reaches a climax.  Edwin invades and conquers large parts of Gwynedd, including Anglesey.  The defeated Cadwallon is besieged on Puffin Island (off Anglsey), from where he eventually flees to Brittany.

c.630 - The Battle of the Long Mountain (nr Welshpool)  King Penda of Mercia allies with Cadwallon who has returned from exile in Brittany and they re-take Gwynedd.  Cadwallon then marches to Northumbria and ransacks the kingdom.

633  Battle of Hatfield Chase - Cadwallon  in alliance with Penda, defeated and killed Edwin, which led to the temporary collapse of Northumbria and its division back into its constituent kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira.   Cadwallon then slayed both King Eanfrith of Bernicia and Osric of Deira rather than negotiate peace terms with them.  Oswald succeeded in Bernicia and Acha in Deira.

634  Battle of Heavenfield (Hexham, Yorkshire, close to Hadrians Wall)  Cadwallon marches a huge army north, up the old Roman road, Dere Street  into Northumbria to take on Oswald.  However, Cadwallon and his army were exhausted after their long journey and  Oswalds' men, alert and ready for the fight, siezed the initiative and despite being outnumbered, killed Cadwallan and defeated his army.

Born on this day 1921 in Tenby 

Kenneth Griffith - actor and documentary filmmaker.

Griffiths left school in 1937  and moved to Cambridge, taking a job at an ironmongers, weighing nails. This lasted only a day and proved to be the only job he ever had outside of the acting world as he then joined the Cambridge Festival Theatre  at the age of 16.  Griffith then volunteered for service with the RAF in 1939 and served during WWII.  In 1941, he made his debut in the first of more than 100 films in which he principally played character roles. such as Archie Fellows in The Shop at Sly Corner, the wireless operator Jack Phillips on board the Titanic in A Night to Remember (1958) and especially in the comedies of the Boulting brothers, including Private's Progress (1956) and I'm All Right Jack (1959).  He also portrayed the gay medic Witty in The Wild Geese (1978) and a whimsical mechanic in The Sea Wolves (1980).  More recently, he appeared in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) and The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain(1995).  Griffith also had many television roles such as in, Danger Man, The Prisoner, Minder, Lovejoy and "The Bus to Bosworth", where his personification of a Welsh schoolteacher out on a field trip won him many accolades.

In his personal life, Griffith was  a close friend of Peter O''Toole and was also a world authority on the Boer War.  He was very politically minded and held firm views against British imperialism.  He was President of a society for the emancipation of the Untouchables caste in India and an avid supporter of Sinn Fein.  His political views were reflected in some no-holds-barred documentaries about subjects such as Michael Collins, Winston Churchill, Cecil Rhodes and Napoleon Bonaparte.  His documentary work has been described as a world class, but his career did not reach its full potential due to his refusal to compromise on his political views.

Born on this day 1955 in Port Talbot

Brian Flynn -  former Wales soccer international, winning 66 caps and later manager of the Wales under 21 and senior sides.

The Testimony of Taliesin Jones first screened on 12th October 2000, is an international award-winning drama which tells the profoundly moving coming-of-age story of 12-year-old Taliesin Jones (John Paul MacLeod), who is discovering girls, is bullied at school and is struggling to get by at home. It is based on a novel of the same name by Rhydian Brook, an award-winning author from Tenby.

The film was shot almost entirely on location in Wales and includes scenes in Cwm Ifor School in Caerphilly with staff and pupils from St Cenydd School as extras.

Born on this day 1867 in St Brides Wentloog, Monmouthshire.

Lyn Harding  (real name David Llewellyn Harding) - stage, radio and film actor whose career spanned the transition from silent films to talkies. He is perhaps best remembered for his menacing portrayal of Professor Moriarty in the dramatisations of the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Harding began working in Newport, as an apprentice draper but decided to pursue an acting career after giving Shakespearean readings in a Cardiff chapel.  Then an opportunist meeting in 1890, with a touring group of actors, led to his first professional role, deputising for a sick actor.  He then toured the country with the group, making his London  in 1897.

Over his career, he worked with many big name performers, such as Ralph Richardson, Anthony Quale and John Gielgud, making his final stage appearance aged 74, in the West End.  His last professional appearance was when aged 79 he played Owain Glyndwr in BBC radio's production of Shakespeare's Henry IV. 

On October 12th 1977, Wales went red with rage at possibly the greatest injustice ever in Welsh football history.

Wales were playing  Scotland at Anfield in a winner takes all World Cup qualifying match.  The atmosphere was electric and all Welsh football fans who were not present were glued to television and radio sets.  There was an air of nervous excitement that after years of disappointment and near misses that this Welsh team could finally deliver on the World stage.  With 12 minutes to go, the game was reaching a thrilling climax, with chances coming at both ends, as the two sides pushed for a winning goal. 

Then, referee Robert Wurtz awarded a penalty against Wales's Dave Jones for handball, Jones pleaded his innocence to the referee, all to no avail and the resulting successful penalty by Don Masson changed the dynamic of the game and ensured a Scottish victory.  However, television replays clearly showed that it was Scotland's Joe Jordan that had handled the ball from Asa Hartford's long throw.  But it was the image of Jordan claiming the penalty and then kissing the same, guilty hand  that lingers on in the minds of frustrated Welsh fans.

On 12th October 2003, The Friends of the Leinster held a service at Holyhead to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the sinking of RMS Leinster by a German U-boat.

RMS Leinster was serving as the Dún Laoghaire to Holyhead mailboat, when she was torpedoed and sunk on 10th October 1918, just outside Dublin Bay. Over 500 people perished in the sinking, the greatest single loss of life in the Irish Sea.

Born on this day 1957 in Holyhead (where her father was serving in the RAF)

Dawn French - BAFTA award-winning actress, writer and comedian, best known for starring in and writing the comedy show French and Saunders with Jennifer Saunders and for playing the lead role  in The Vicar of Dibley.  French has also appeared in The Comic Strip, Murder Most Horrid and Little Britain, as well as being heavily involved with Comic Relief.

Dawn first met Jennifer Saunders at the Central School of Speech and Drama, even though both had grown up at the same RAF  base, they had never met.  Initially they did not get on, Saunders considered French a "cocky little upstart" and French thought Saunders was snooty and aloof.  However, they became friends and  formed a double-act called the Menopause Sisters and came to wider public attention as members of the Comic Strip in the early 1980s.

She is also known for her celebrity marriage to comedian Lenny Henry and the pair has an adopted daughter named Billie.  However, they separated on amicable terms in April 2010.  In a 2006 poll, French was named as the most admired female celebrity amongst women in Britain and in 2013 she was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom.

B orn on this day 1762 on a farm called Pant Dwfn, near St Clears.

David Charles - hymn-writer and Methodist minister. His best-known hymns include "O fryniau Caersalem ceir gweled" and "O Iesu Mawr"

Charles was apprenticed to a Carmarthen rope-maker and flax-dresser and to improve his craft he went to Bristol for further experience. On his return to Carmarthen, he was appointed the manager of the local rope-works.

Charles was a self-educated man, who started preaching at the age of 46 and later published, two volumes of  his Welsh sermons, one volume of  his English sermons and a Welsh selection of his other writings.  He was forced to retire aged 66 after suffering a stroke, which left him  paralysed and without the power of speech.

Born on this day 1909 in Dowlais

David John "Dai" Astley - former Wales soccer international.  A prolific goal scorer, Astley scored 12 goals for Wales in 13 appearances.  At club level, he is best remembered for his 92 goals for Aston Villa in 165 matches.  His playing career was cut short with the outbreak of World War II, after which he turned to management, most notably becoming the manager of Inter Milan in 1948.

Born on this day 1981 in Aylesbury (Welsh grandmother)

Sam Ricketts - Wales soccer international with 50 caps.  He played over a hundred games for Swansea City before playing in the Premier League for both Hull City and Bolton Wanderers. 

The monthly rainfall for October 1909 of 56.5 inches at Llyn Llydaw, Snowdonia, is a British record.  

In 1997 I was asked to participate in the creation of a 'Swansea Night' to celebrate our city's history. There were a number of powerful folk songs from which to draw but I felt the need for something more. What was required was a song free of history's hazy romance that showed Swansea in the clear light of the post industrial present. If possible it should offer hope for the future.

Swansea, and particularly Mumbles village to the west of the city, has a long association with oysters. The area saw commercial oyster fishing dating from roman times until the early twentieth century. Even as late as the 1950s I remember the skeleton keels of the old oyster boats quietly disintegrating where they had been abandoned just below the high tide mark. They still had their uses then of course: as jumping off points for children when the tide was right.

It seemed to me that what had once been could be again. 'Why' I reasoned, as Swansea tried its best to recover from post war industrial decline , 'shouldn't the oyster industry be revived? Maybe that could be part of a new future for the city?'

So I wrote Oyster Blues. (If you want to hear it click here ). And played it at various gigs in the UK and Europe. It nearly always went down well. Even in Lincolnshire - where oysters are few and far between. But h ow to achieve the return of the oysters I didn't have a clue. I had written the song. That was as far as I could go.

You can imagine my excitement then when my good friend Noemi Thomas showed me a piece in the South Wales Evening Post about marine biologist and shell fisheries expert Dr Andy Woolmer's Native Oyster Restoration Project at Mumbles.

The Mumbles Oyster Company Ltd. is aiming to reintroduce native oysters ( Ostrea edulis ) back on to derelict oyster beds off Mumbles in Swansea Bay. The company, set up by Andy and working closely with Cambridge University scientists, is planning on relaying over 10,000 juvenile oysters on to the seabed in a ranching operation that aims to restore the fishery and wider population.

Dr Woolmer openly admits that this project, the first of its kind in Europe where a commercial aquaculture operation is working with scientists to restore a threatened species on a commercial basis, has no guarantee of success. But then, I guess thats science for you.

As far as I am concerned I only wish him well as he realises a dream I had 15 years ago.

Today is the feast day of Saint Tanwg

c.520 Saint Tanwg was the son of Prince Ithel Hael from Brittany, who left with St Cadfan to join the monastery on Bardsey Island, he is associated with the church of Llandanwg situated among the sand dunes, near Harlech. It is thought that this church may have formed part of a Christian communication network in post-Roman Britain between Wales, Cornwall, Ireland, Scotland and Brittany when Roman influence was disintegrating, but Christianity was holding firm in these areas, as opposed to England, where paganism had taken root. It was connected by road to the monastery at Bangor Iscoed near Wrexham.

Today is the feast day of Saint Iestyn

c.550  Saint Iestyn   He is said to have been the son of Geraint ab Erbin, a ruler of Dumnonia (South West England). Iestyn was a hermit and a follower of the Anglesey-based Saint Cybi, there are two churches of the same name named after him, Llaniestyn in Gwynedd and Llaniestyn on Anglesey, where there is a late 14th-century carved effigy stone of him.

The film, "House of America", was released on 10th October 1997, featuring Sian Phillips and Matthew Rhys in starring roles.  Its director, Marc Evans won the 'Best Directorial Debut' award at the Stockholm International Film Festival. 

The setting is a depressed mining town and deals with issues such as Welsh identity and the nation's perceived inferiority complex. The film also won four BAFTA Cymru awards.

Born on this day 1985 in Abergavenny and brought up in the nearby village of Pandy.

Marina Lambrini Diamandis - singer-songwriter, otherwise known as Marina and The Diamonds. Despite the name, she is a solo act, the "Diamonds" being a reference to her fans.  Marina rose to fame after finishing second on the BBC Sound of 2010 poll.  

Born on this day 1864, from Newport

Arthur Joseph "Monkey" Gould - Wales rugby international, who won 27 caps, 18 as captain.  Gould, called "Monkey" because of childhood passion of climbing trees, led Wales to their very first Home Nations Championship and Triple Crown titles in 1893.

Gould is considered the first superstar of Welsh rugby and the Welsh Rugby Union thought so much of him that they bought him a house.  This caused a famous controversy as it contradicted the amateur status of players at the time and Wales was ostracised by the other home countries, for 14 months until 'Monkey' spared them further isolation by retiring.  In June 2007, he was inducted into the Welsh Sports Hall of Fame.

Age of the Saints

It is thought that the foundations of the Welsh church had already been laid in late Roman Britain and "The Age of the Saints" refers to the 5th and 6th century "Celtic Saints" who journeyed along the western seaways between Brittany, Cornwall, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, spreading the Word. 

The Age of Saints began in Wales with Dyfrig (Saint Dubricus), a bishop at Ariconium in the kingdom of Ergyng in the middle of the 5th century, who kept Christianity alive in Wales at a time when Roman introduced Christianity was waning in England and paganism was revived. Dyrfig was followed by Illtud, an abbot, who established a school in Llanilltud Fawr (Llantwit Major), which drew scholars from across the Celtic world.  Gildas, the author of "De Excidio Britanniae", one of the few historical records we have of  Britain at this time, was a scholar at Llanilltud Fawr.

In the early sixth century, many of the Welsh Saints  retreated from society and settled in isolated areas to lead lives of prayer and communion with God and  unlike the Irish missionaries, made very little attempt to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxons.  Christianity only reached the English with the coming of St Augustine to Canterbury in 597, on a mission to bring Christianity to Britain  As a papal-appointed archbishop, Augustine expected obedience from the bishops of Wales, but they rejected his claims and also refused to conform to Roman practices on matters such as the system for calculating the date of Easter.  Wales was the only substantial territory still refusing to conform. and when the English historian Bede was writing his Ecclesiastical History of the English People in 731, he claimed that the Welsh had possessed no desire to Christianize the pagan English and, for the most part, have a natural hatred for the English and uphold their own bad customs against the true Easter of the Catholic Church.  

The Celtic saints of Wales were often men or women of noble rank, including kings, princes, and chieftains, who chose to renounce privilege and live the monastic life, they appear as individuals of conscience in a violently unpredictable age, polar opposites of aggressive kingdom expansionism and they offered a peaceful non-violent place of sanctuary.

In Wales sanctity was locally conferred and none of the medieval Welsh saints appears to have been canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.  Of the thousand or so parishes of Wales, the names of up to a half begin with Llan. It means an enclosure and was originally applied to a consecrated Christian burial ground rather than to a building,  some of the llannau are dedicated to the Celtic saints hence we have Landdewi, Llandeilo, Llangadog, Llanbadarn, Llanfeuno and Llandysilio, while others are dedicated to figures of Christianity such as Mary, Peter and Michael (Llanfair, Llanbedr, Llanfihangel).  Over 400 inscribed tombstones and crosses have been found from all parts of Wales, with dates ranging from the 5th century.  The earliest examples are quite plain and generally served as tombstones or grave markers.  Later monuments include the "Samson Cross" at Llantwit, and the fine pillar crosses at Carew and  Nevern. 

As regular readers will be aware we interviewed AmeriCymru member Janet Folatjar a few weeks ago about her forthcoming visit to Wales. At that time she agreed to a follow up interview which we are please to present today.

Jant and her husband Don from Pittsburgh, PA visited Wales and signed up for the Celticos /AmeriCymru Trail Tour . We spoke to Janet about the trip and her experience with Celticos.

While Janet was in Wales she was interviewed by Welsh language TV station S4C ( see pic below ). S4C have agreed to make the interview available for viewing online so that our readers in the US can access it. Keep checking back for the latest developments. We will post as soon as the video is available.

AmeriCymru: Hi Janet and thanks for agreeing to do this follow up interview with us upon your return from Wales. How did you enjoy the trip?

Janet: Ceri our trip was wonderful! I would say it was a once in a lifetime experience. The weather was mild and sunny which allowed beautiful vistas of North Wales and Anglesey. What a beautiful area...I never imagined it to be so picturesque! We could have not seen so many unique places without the help of Celticos. Being a bit timid about driving, I had originally planned on using public transportation during our stay. But I when I found that the Ameri/Cymru Trail tour visited many of the places I wanted to see it was a "no brainer". It really simplified getting around and we saw many unique places that we would have not been able to access via public transportation. Alywn, our tour guide, is very knowledgeable about the local history which provided information we could have not found in a guide book. Alywn also arranged contact/meetings with local people to enhance the experience. We were overwhelmed by the tour and learned so much about North Wales.

AmeriCymru: In particular how would you rate the Celticos/AmeriCymru Trail tour?

Janet: I would rate the tour as excellent!

AmeriCymru: What, for you, was the highlight of your vacation?

Janet: Wow, there were so many highlights! I really enjoyed visting the old slate quarries in Llanberis and copper mine in Almwch. I also enjoyed the stop at the New York Cottages Museum in Penmaenmawr. I never knew that there was a fort built to protect the UK against the Americans during the Revolutionary War or that the lifeboat system in UK is all volunteer!

AmeriCymru: Would you recommend others to book with Celticos?

Janet: Absolutely!!! Celticos offers tours that take the tourist away from the typical site. We are looking forward to visiting again and plan on touring with Celticos in the future!

READ JANET & DON'S 5 STAR REVIEWS ON TRIPADVISOR HERE

Don & Janet being filmed by S4C

A message from Catrin Brace at the Welsh Assembly Government office in New York:-

The Welsh Government has just published a guide to Welsh food and drink products available in the USA and how to buy them. The guide can be downloaded and printed from the Visit Wales website as below. Please tweet this information to your friends and put it on your Facebook pages. Thanks!

http://americas.visitwales.com/news-and-features/food-drink/

On October 9th 1401 Llywelyn ap Gruffydd Fychan, was gruesomely executed for thwarting the efforts of King Henry IV’s forces to capture Owain Glyndwr.

Owain Glyndwr had rebelled against English rule and declared himself Prince of Wales in 1400.  Then in the summer of 1401, on the slopes of Pumlumon, Glyndwr had crushed Henry IV’s army.  In reprisal, Henry sent a force into Wales to find Glyndwr and they tracked him down to Llandovery.  Henry, accompanied by his son (the future Henry V) followed with a huge army and on arriving in Llandovery, looked for local help in locating Glyndwr.  Local landowner, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd Fychan volunteered to help, however, the 60-year-old  Llywelyn, who had two sons in Glyndwr’s army, had no intetions of betraying Glyndwr.  For weeks, he led the king and his forces on a wild goose chase through the uplands of Deheubarth, which allowed Glyndwr and his men time to make their escape.

The king’s patience became taxed and he began to see that Llywelyn was not taking them to their man.  Angrily, Henry ordered that Llywelyn be dragged through the town of Llandovery and there, be executed in the town square, in front of the castle gates.  Firstly Llywelyn's stomach was cut out and cooked in front of him, then he was hanged, drawn and quartered, with his remains sent to other Welsh towns to deter them from opposing the king.  However, Glyndwr remained uncaptured and was never betrayed.  

The Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington, was opened October 9th 1888.  Halfway up, there is a stone which was donated by the people of Wales.  Its inscription reads; Fy Iaith, Fy Ngwlad, Fy Nghenedl. WALES. Cymry am byth. (My Language, My Country, My People. WALES. The Welsh Forever)

The Washington Monument was built to commemorate George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and the first American president, who once declared "good Welshman make good Americans".

Construction of the monument, made of marble, granite and bluestone gneiss, began in 1848 and was completed in 1884.  At the time, it became the world's tallest structure and it is still, both the world's tallest stone structure and the world's tallest obelisk.  A unique feature of the Washington Monument is the 193 memorial stones that adorn the east and west interior walls of the monument. The Washington National Monument Society invited countries, states, cities and patriotic societies to contribute Memorial Stones. to pay tribute to the character and achievements of George Washington. 

The first ever recorded sheepdog trial in the U.K. was Mr. R. J. Lloyd-Price's event at Garth Coch, about a mile from Bala on 9th of October, 1873.

Although the majority of competitors were Welsh, the trial was won by Scotsman James (Jimmy) Thomson with his dog, Tweed.  Jimmy had moved to Wales as a tenant on Mr. Lloyd-Price's estate in 1872.   

Construction of the first major railway in Wales, the Main Line: Cardiff - Merthyr Tydfil by the Taff Vale Railway was started in 1836, with the stretch from Cardiff to Navigation House (later named Abercynon) officially opened on 9th October 1840. The stretch from Abercynon to Merthyr was later opened on 12th April 1841.

Both the coal and iron industries grew significantly during the industrial revolution and the availability of coal, iron ore and limestone at the heads of the South Wales valleys led to a number of ironworks being founded there between 1750 and 1800, including the Cyfarthfa, Plymouth and Dowlais works in the Merthyr Tydfil area.

Canals were built along several of the valleys, to transport the iron for shipping and the canal companies were authorised to build tramroads from the canal to connect with nearby industries. However congestion on the canal increased as traffic boomed, and the need for a quicker railway route emerged.

In 1835 Anthony Hill, owner of the Plymouth Iron Works, asked his friend Isambard Kingdom Brunel, to estimate the cost of building a railway from Merthyr to Cardiff and to Bute Docks. Brunel's estimate was £190,649. Local industrialists including John Josiah Guest, requested Parliamentary permission to form a company to build the railway. Subsequently, Royal Assent was given to The Taff Vale Railway Company's Act, allowing for the creation of the Taff Vale Railway Company and a railway from Merthyr to the Bute West Dock at Cardiff. Company profits were capped at 7% and the speed of the trains on the line was limited to 12 mph, with stiff penalties for any speeding.   

On 9th October 1217, Isabel Marshal (born at Pembroke Castle and daughter of William the Marshal, the "best knight that ever lived.") married Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, on her 17th birthday. They were to become the great grandparents of King Robert the Bruce of Scotland.

After Gilbert's death, Isabel married Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall (the son of King John of England and brother of King Henry III), she died of liver failure, contracted while in childbirth, on 17 January 1240 and when dying, asked to be buried next to her first husband at Tewkesbury Abbey. However, Richard had her interred at Beaulieu Abbey but did send her heart to Tewkesbury in a silver casket.

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On 8th September 1945 Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's deputy in the Nazi Party was flown to Nuembourg, ending 3 years of imprisonment at Maindiff Court Military Hospital Abergavenny. 

Hess had made a dramatic midnight flight to Scotland in 1941, in what is thought to be, an attempt to achieve a peace between Britain and Nazi Germany.  He had bailed out over Eaglesham, injuring his leg in the process and was arrested by members of the Home Guard, he then spent several weeks in the Tower of London (the last man ever to be imprisoned there) and at Camp Z in Aldershot undergoing interrogation and debriefing.

 On 26 June 1942 he was transferred to Maindiff Court, where he had his own room, was allowed to keep journals, take walks around the grounds and often taken on drives around the local countryside.  Then on 8th October 1945, he was taken to Nuremberg to face trial for war crimes.  Found guilty, he was spared the rope but was sentenced to life imprisonment at Spandau Prison   in Berlin, where after 1966, until his death in 1987, he was the sole occupant.  

Born this day 1872 in Shirley, Derbyshire ( His father, a clergyman, took great pride in his Welsh ancestry and his mother was descended from the English poets William Cowper and John Donne.)

John Cowper Powys - novelist and lecturer.

Crockherbtown station, now Cardiff Queen Street railway station was opened on 8th October 1840.

It was Cardiff's first railway station and also the headquarters of the Taff Vale Railway. Cardiff Central station was not opened until 1850 as the area it is situated on was prone to flooding, with this problem being solved when Isambard Kingdom Brunel suggested diverting the River Taff to the west. 

Crockherbtown was one of the five areas that surrounded and were later to become absorbed by the walled town of Cardiff. The others were Butetown, Grangetown, Newtown and Temperance Town.

The name is thought to be of Saxon origin and literally means “the town of the crock herbs”.  Franciscan monks settled in the area in the late 13th century and it is thought that they cultivated the crock herbs. In the 14th century, it housed a leper colony run by the nuns of St Mary Magdalene that was closed in the Reformation.

Crockherbtown later became a refuge from the muddy, violent and shabby areas of Cardiff for Aldermen and wealthier merchants and by the 18th century, fine Georgian townhouses were appearing among the thatched cottages. Then the opening of the Taff Vale Railway from Merthyr to Cardiff in 1841 gave the town its first public railway station. With boomtown Cardiff’s population now going off the graph, it became a priority to clear away the pre-industrial town and in 1863 Crockherbtown was widened and renamed Queen Street in 1886.

The name does still live on in the area, with the pub chain Wetherspoons naming its local outlet, ‘The Crockerton' and there is a narrow route running behind it called 'Crockherbtown Lane' which runs parallel with the section of Queen Street which would have once been known as Crockherbtown.   

Born on this day 1753 in Newport, Rhode Island (His grandfather also William Jones was born in Wales)

William Jones - the eighth Governor of Rhode Island.  He was re-elected five times (1811 to 1817) 

Jones participated in the Revolutionary War, after which he became a Justice of the Peace.  Jones was elected to the Rhode Island General Assembly in 1807 and was Speaker of the Rhode Island State House of Representatives, before becoming the only Federalist ever to serve as Governor of Rhode Island.   

For acts of bravery on October 8th, 1858, during the Indian Mutiny. Thomas Monaghan from Abergavenny, a trumpeter in the 2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen's Bays), was awarded the Victoria Cross.

Monaghan and Private Charles Anderson saved the life of their Colonel, Lt. Colonel W H Seymour C. B, after he had been attacked and felled by thirty to forty mutineers in a dense jungle.  They held off the Sepoys and brought him to safety.

When Monaghan died in 1895, he was buried in a common grave, however, in 1967, the Old Comrades Association paid for and had erected a headstone over his unmarked grave in Woolwich cemetery.  

On 8th October 1918, William Herbert Waring from Welshpool, a lance sergeant in the 25th Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers, died following an act of bravery on 18th September 1918 at Ronssoy, France, for which he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.  

In the face of devastating fire, Lance-Sergeant Waring single-handedly rushed and captured an enemy machine gun position.  He then reorganised and led his men for a further 400 yards, before falling mortally wounded.  

Born on this day 1932 in Tredegar

Ray Reardon, MBE - Six times World Snooker Champion, who dominated the sport in the 1970s.

Reardon started working as a miner at Ty Trist Colliery aged 14, but following being injured in a rockfall, he quit mining and became a police officer when his family moved to Stoke on Trent. Aged 15, Reardon was British youth snooker champion and in 1964, he won the English Amateur title. Reardon resigned as a policeman and turned professional in 1967. At the age of 50, he became the oldest player to win a ranking tournament and with Doug Mountjoy and Terry Griffiths won the Snooker World Cup for Wales in 1979 and 1980. Because of his dark widow's peak and sharp-toothed grin, he is jokingly nicknamed Dracula.  

On 8th October 1802, a Unitarian Association was formed in South Wales, with Iolo Morganwg one of its leaders.

Unitarianism is a theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism, which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one being.

Iolo Morganwg was from the early 1790s until his death in 1826, a strongly anti-establishment and anti-clerical Unitarian and campaigned furiously on its behalf until and after it was made legal in 1813.