THE ABBEY MILL
Martyn J Griffiths
An iron forge and rolling mill was erected in the cwm of the river Clydach at Neath Abbey in 1825 and this same building was later used as a woollen mill before becoming a clothing factory. The building is accessed via the lane which leads off to the left immediately after the railway viaduct on Taillwyd Road, Neath Abbey.
Coflein comments that it was built on the site of a late seventeenth century copper works but that building was further up-stream. Their description of the building and its usage is interesting,
'It is constructed of Pennant sandstone, with ashlar dressings, under a pitched slate roof supported on cast and wrought iron trusses. The south-west elevation was originally a series of arches, but these have been filled in and rendered over. The works was powered by a waterwheel on its north-east side, fed from a dam built across the head of the Clydach Falls. In the 1870s it was converted to a woollen mill, which may be when the arches were blocked. One of the doorways has a keystone bearing the date 1825.'
D Rhys Phillips1 states that the building was erected by Joshua Prosser who was employed by the company as a master mason. However, the descendants of Joshua Prosser say that he was never employed at the Neath Abbey Works. They claim that it was another of their ancestors, David Owen that was the master builder who constructed the forge.
Power for the mill was supplied by a 20 ton mill-wheel. Water for this was piped, directly from the waterfall, around the back of the mill building where a leet took the water past the wheel and under the road before returning to the river. Boards were fixed across the top of the waterfall to create a pool and to regulate the water. Every year these boards were removed for cleaning and maintenance work. The pool, known as Pwll Du, made an ideal place for local youngsters to swim.
There is some evidence that there were in fact two water wheels. The second, smaller wheel appears on a photograph of a 1906 painting which shows a wheel on the river-side of the complex. A local resident has investigated further and what he found seems to confirm this siting.
The mill is a Grade 2 Listed Building but suffered severe fire damage in the late 1990s. In 2004 there was an attempt to obtain planning permission for a private house on the site but this failed due to local opposition, the historical importance of the building plus difficulties concerning access. The Royal Commission for Ancient and Historical Monuments in Wales commented that 'South Wales pioneered the use of large span iron roofs internationally and Neath Abbey Mill roof is one of the best surviving examples.'
Photo - Robert Davies
The waterfall near the woollen mills. The sandy floored pool above was known as Pwll Du
The woollen mill is said to have been established in about 18722 by a man named Lewis. The curator of Drefach woollen mills museum claims that the mill at Neath Abbey was established by an Edward Lewis. Although several Lewis’s were connected with the mill, there is no reference of ownership prior to 1877 when James Reynolds was facing liquidation.
The Furniture Gazette 1877, Volume 7
The Reynolds family continued to do business from the Cwmpandy mill and it is more than likely that, in order to recover from their financial difficulties, the Abbey mill was sold on at this time. [Cwmpandy mill was near Eaglesbush].
In May 1882 Edward Lewis was one of six people (including Hopkin Morgan) who attended a council meeting and objected to the establishment of a flannel fair in the town as they believed it would affect their trade materially. Their objection was upheld.
In Kelly’s 1884 directory Edward Lewis is shown as running both the Abbey mills in Neath Abbey and the Dyffryn mills in Glynneath. He lived in London Road and was originally from Carmarthen. On the 1881 census he is recorded as a woollen cloth manufacturer employing 20 men and 23 women. However, he was not a son of John Lewis and was only 24 years of age at this time.
In January 1885 he was noted as supplying blankets and flannels for distribution amongst the poor of Ystradgynlais.
A clue as to what became of one of the Lewis brothers of the Abbey mill was found in a press report dated March 1917 when a Lieutenant Lewis of the Canadian Field Force, serving as a private in the RFA was made a presentation at Vint’s Palace. It was reported that he was the son of the late proprietor of the Neath Abbey Mills. Unfortunately, his first name is not given so he may have been a son of Edward [who disappears from census returns after 1881], or of his brother who, at the moment, remains anonymous.
Wilson’s Directory of 1885 shows a John Lewis of Neath Abbey woollen mills. He was originally from Llannewydd, near Carmarthen and died in 1890 at the age of 73. His son George, worked with him as a weaver and later settled in the town as an insurance agent. One of the executors of John Lewis’ will was Hopkin Morgan; his successor at the Abbey Mills. There does not appear to be any family connection between John Lewis and the previous Lewis brothers.
Sale of the Neath Abbey Mills October 1888 by Lewis Brothers (the auctioneers, not the owners)
The next owners were Hopkin and John Morgan. They were the sons of Morgan Morgan who ran the Victoria Woollen Mill in Wind Street, Neath. His sons had taken over the business by 1873. By the end of the 1880s their main business was in Neath Abbey although they continued to run the mill in Wind Street and had outlets for their trade at a draper’s shop in Wind Street and a stall in the market. They produced flannel for shirts, underwear and stockings for industrial workers as well as petticoats, shawls and blankets.
In 1919/1920 the mill was sold to Alfred Mark Maisey and partner, Cardiff drapers. He did not seem to have the necessary industrial experience to continue to run the mill and went bankrupt in 1927. The woollen mill was disposed of but he continued to run a flannel shirt factory in the upper part of the building, although he now had to buy in his raw material as opposed to producing it himself.
Maisey was a Londoner and was sentenced to two years imprisonment during World War 1 as a conscientious objector, though he was released early to carry out work of national importance in Wakefield. In Neath he settled in Penywern Road. By 1946 he was employing more than 60 women producing shirts and overalls etc. for industrial workers. He retired around 1952 and died five years later at his home, Carey Hall. After the demise of the woollen mill the whole of the site was taken over by Histon Overalls who continued producing garments until the late 1990s.
Mark Maisey was well known in Neath where he was President of the Rotary Club in 1954, vice-president of the Golf Club and had links to many other organisations.
Photo: Yvonne Carter
The ladies of the sewing factory around 1960
William Griffith Jones, a North Walian, rented the woollen mill in 1927 and bought it by 1933. He had previously worked at Dyffryn mill in Port Talbot. In 1947 the mill at Neath Abbey employed 5 girls and 3 men, producing blankets, shawls and knitting yarns. There was a contract to supply 100 shawls a year to the crown agent for colonies, for the Basuto Leper Colony in South Africa.
The 1946 Neath Abbey Estate sale describes the main factory building as containing – Spinning Room, Weaving Shed, Press and Stock Room on the ground floor; Carding Room, Stock Room, Cutting Room and Sewing Room above. There was also a Boiler House, Stoke House with Drying Room over, lean-to Dye Shed, lean-to Press Room and Oil Store; and a portable corrugated iron canteen building.
By 1967 the mill was employing 4 people in addition to the mill owner and his son. It continued to operate until 1974, and a few years later the machinery was bought by Swansea Museums and displayed in Swansea Industrial Museum until in 2000 the machinery was dispersed to several other sites. Mr. Griff Jones, the son of WG Jones [who only retired in 1970] was the last person associated with the running of the mill. The looms are now at the Gower Heritage Centre and the large carding engine is in daily operation at the National Woollen Mill Centre at Drefach.
Under Mr. Jones the mill sourced its wool from British suppliers through the British Wool Marketing Board, and also from New Zealand. It obtained black wool the mill mostly from Northern Spain. Woven blankets were sent to the Elland Finishing Company in Yorkshire to be finished off; and shawls were sent to Cefn Coed Hospital in Swansea where it was part of the occupational therapy for patients to attach the fringes by hand.4
By the 1960s electricity, which had previously been generated from the waterfall, came from the National Grid and similarly, mains water was being used as opposed to diversions from the River Clydach. Dyes, previously made at the mill, were being bought from Imperial Chemical Industries.5
video still - Syd Johnson
William Griffith Jones at the loom 1967
The closure of the mill was due mainly to increases in the price of wool, competition from synthetic products and the popularity of continental quilts.6 Raw wool which had cost 25 pence per pound a few years earlier now cost 80 pence. At the end, only blankets, shawls and weaving yarns for art students were being made there, though some products were exported as far as the United States and Japan. The mill was described as 'the last of its kind' in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire to manufacture from raw wool to the finished product.
Walter Grimes 1998 (National Trust)
A reconstruction of the woollen mill at Neath Abbey
NAS/Ph/36/5/017
The former woollen mills used as a clothing factory
Photo: Martyn Griffiths
The woollen mills in 2017 after a serious fire and years of neglect
The council discussed7 preserving the Woollen Mills along with building a tidal barrage, but sadly that came to nothing.
1. History of the Vale of Neath - D Rhys Phillips (1952) - [the author had his information from David William Prosser, a grandson of Joseph Prosser, but it was DW.’s maternal grandfather who was master mason in Neath Abbey].
2. Coflein suggests 1870, but Peoples’ Collection Wales states 1873.
3. History of the Vale of Neath - D Rhys Phillips (1952)
4. The Neath Abbey Woollen Mills, Anne Morgans, Hanes, June 2019.
5. The Neath Abbey Woollen Mills, Anne Morgans, Hanes, June 2019.
6. Neath Guardian 10th May 1974
7. Neath Guardian 9th August 1974
