What is going on around Eglwysilan Common?

It was a first for me: farmers unwilling to walk up a track on a common for fear of being threatened.  But that happened on a visit to see some very odd things being done on Eglwysilan Common following a phone call from  a long-time group member of Open Spaces Society, Mynydd Eglwysilan Association.

There are three commons to the east of the A470 and Taff river: Mynydd Mayo, Eglwysilan, and Craig Evan Leyshon.  We drove up to Nelson to access the byway which runs down the eastern side of Eglwysilan common  to Caerphilly. The common is shaped like an upside down horseshoe around Abertridwr and Senghenydd.

There are over 30 commoners, farmers with grazing rights (or “stints”) for a certain number of livestock in addition to their own land.  A calculation of the share is made for each commoner for the single farm payment – it is important to all commoners that the common does not get enclosed or encroached.

What is really important to the public is their right of access: people of all the towns and villages around can walk or cycle, ride or drive to enjoy the open spaces and views.

The former chair of Mynydd Eglwysilan Association made sure that the byways of the common were recorded on the Definitive Map in the early 1970s, and our group on a quad bike and in landrovers made our way down one of these – actually marked “supposed Roman Road” on the Definitive Map, until we came to one of the odd things: a two-foot pipe, deliberately blocked and the road torn up so that it has flooded and the mud is puddled.

The land on the left is harvested forestry land sold privately to the commoner who is blamed for this flood.  At the top of the photo above, I’ve marked the black piles of biodigested slurry and planings (road crumbs) which have been dumped on common land: as far as anyone knows without permission.  Several farmers refused to walk past the mud (below) at this point, because of the manner of the other commoner, on his bulldozer in the harvested forest.  They have even had trouble from him over grazing sheep on the common land beyond the obstructed byway (below right).  He has stopped the public from using byways to access the common, even employing a security man.

The chair of MEA did come to look at the slurry and some new hard standing at the top for the commoner from Penrheol-las to enter his ex-forest.

If these insults to the common were not enough, I had noticed that a new fence ran along the private forest, and again along the wall enclosing Penrheol-las land, and the fence is at least a metre into the common – encroaching and pinching a metre long strip of land.  And I don’t know who dug the ditch.

OSS are not the first organisation to try to stop these opportunist obstructions and developments.  In May, the South Wales Trail Riders Fellowship chatroom had the contents of emails from Caerphilly council: it can be found, as well as photos like those above, at http://www.swtrf.org.uk/index.php?topic=706.15 and there is more shocking evidence of obstruction of other byways.  The Environment Agency, Caerphilly CBC, Police are all involved.  The real owner of the common is supportive of reopening the byway – but now, 4 months on, it has not changed.  The trail riders call the obstreperous commoner “Mad Man Farmer … thinks he owns everything”.  To be fair, some obstructions on the Rhondda-Cynon-Taff CBC side may well be someone else being opportunist.

Looking away from the black heaps, the cut bracken can be seen in the distance, drying ready to be brought in and stored for bedding (below left).   Then we drove back up to Penywaun cattle grid near Nelson (right).

We drove over to one of the oldest farms abutting the common.  We went on the diverted byway round the old Albion tip, looking down to the Aber valley.  This part of the common lies between infamous pits – in  Senghenydd  were mining disasters at Universal Colliery, one in 1901 with 81 dead and then, on 14 October 1913 the worst ever: 439 dead but only 72 bodies recovered.

Senghenydd By T. Gwynn Jones (1913)
A darker shadow lay upon the vale
Than the smoke of the pits
It was the heavy pall of the event
Which swept away the now mute hundreds
A living sacrifice on the altar to Mammon
The lawyers and greedy barons of the fat dividends met
And asked interminably who was to blame
Why it was that hundreds were swept to a horrendous death
Yet there was not one present who did not know the truth.

Bryntail farm is on the other side, not far from Cilfynydd where the Albion Colliery had an explosion felt for miles in 1894: 290 dead.  Before coal, the area had scattered farms, and in 1753, Bryntail was home to William Edwards while he was building the old bridge at Pontypridd.  From above Bryntail, I could see the Garth mountain and my home on the other side of the valley.

All the commoners I met are worried that the unlawful works and encroachments are not being dealt with by the authorities, and there should be proper compliance with the law on commons, enforced.  They are not the only ones wanting to see these things stopped: the trail bikers and walkers are among complainants, and I hear on the grapevine that the public are being denied lawful access.

Useful links on common land: Open Spaces Society at http://www.oss.org.uk/commons/

Welsh Assembly at http://wales.gov.uk/topics/environmentcountryside/farmingandcountryside/common/?lang=en