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Pontypridd market attracted people of the town and surrounding valleys and visitors from all parts of the country. The Victorians, and later the new Edwardians, flocked to Pontypridd in trains and horse-drawn brakes or buses, carriages, gigs, traps, hansom cabs and four-wheeler cabs. They came on horseback and in donkey carts to buy produce and goods at bargain prices from the market stallholders and town shopkeepers. Cattle and sheep were sold in the present-day fruit and vegetable market avenue near its Church Street end. Early drovers to the town knew Church Street and Market Street together as Cattle Lane. There were no street stalls in the early Victorian years but, with the increasing popularity and importance of the market, a Saturday indoor general produce market was introduced in 1887 in addition to the traditional Wednesday market. There was an indoor market which sold mainly agricultural produce in Pontypridd as early as 1805. It was held for many years on the ground floor of a square-shaped building with an arched, stone-tiled roof standing in Market Square at the lower end of the now demolished Arcade and beside the stableyard wall of the one-time New Inn Hotel. The Corn Market removed from Llantrisant in 1805 and stood until 1885 next to a corner china store, opposite today's Lloyds Bank. Its several entrances had imposing gates more than eight feet high. Sacks of corn, casks of butter, large cheeses and bales of wool were stacked there among ploughs, harrows, scythes and other farm implements. Farmers drove their cattle, sheep, pigs and horses to pens in the busy market avenue or to the small cattle market behind the Butchers Arms, later renamed the Park Hotel, now the premises of the Midland Bank and Woolworth's in Taff Street. And to a cattle market near the now dismantled gasometer at the other end of town. After a tramroad built by coalowner Walter Coffin in 1810 from his collieries at Dinas had linked with Dr Richard Griffiths's tramroad from Gyfeillon, near Hopkinstown, to his private canal at Treforest and the Glamorganshire Canal at Dynea, housewives from the Rhondda Valleys abandoned their perilous journeys on horseback or by cart across the valleys and mountain tracks to the reputedly 1000-year-old market at Llantrisant: they found it easier to travel to the markets at Pontypridd and Castle Court, Treforest, aboard several clean trams tagged on to the long trains of coal trams for their use. The shoppers paid threepence to ride in the open horse-drawn trams and wooden platforms were built specially for them at points along the tramroad. At times, they sat in pleasant sunshine glinting on their green valley as the trams rumbled along or they huddled beneath dripping umbrellas or shawls from soaking rain or shivered in bitter winds and light snow. The route through Pontypridd and down to Treforest was called the Tramroad in Victorian times but is known today as Sardis Road and the Broadway - both wide because a turnpike road ran alongside the tramway.... The market of 1888 comprised a large covered market where today's meat and butter markets are situated adjoining the Lesser Town Hall (now the new Clothes Market) built in 1885; and a fruit and vegetable market - once the market yard but today the general market and actually the ground floor area of the New Town Hall built in 1890. And the avenue - an area which earlier had formed part of Gelliwastad Fields. The avenue extension, running to Penuel Lane and the Fountain area, was an uncovered place until partly roofed in 1929 and completed in 1932. It was originally a roadway along which horse-drawn hearses creaked their way to the graveyard of Penuel Chapel, built in 1860, which dominated the town centre. Victorian market shoppers met stallholders such as George Mellor who came to the indoor market in the early 1870s. From his stall he sold best quality china which included some of the output of the Nantgarw and Swansea potteries. He came from Staffordshire about 1865 and set up a tallow and candle factory near the old slaughterhouse site on the Broadway.... The market was gaily decorated at Christmas with trimmings and candle lanterns. The whole indoor market scene was pervaded by the smell of faggots and peas – at one time cooked on an open fireplace which billowed smoke throughout the market hall. A dish of faggots and peas still retains its wide appeal in the market today. Children trooped round the market stalls (and the town and village shops) at the New Year hoping for a free lucky dip into a tub of bran or sawdust, or a gift of a penny or a halfpenny. To recall the Victorian currency: 240 pennies or pence equalled one pound or the value of a gold sovereign. A sixpenny bit was known as a 'tanner' and written 6d. Twelve pennies made a shilling or a 'bob' and was written 1/- or 1s. The famous half-a-crown was 2s 6d. The pound or twenty shillings was written £1.0.0. while a guinea was 21s. A shilling in new coinage is 5p.... But it was 'Roberts for baskets' of every kind made from cane or willow, and sometimes from hazel or mountain ash for use by local farmers. Mrs Francis Roberts opened a stall in 1895 (next to today's Copper Kettle cafe) with her brother Owen Morris. The baskets they sold included babies' layette baskets and Moses cradles for infants rocked to soothing Welsh lullabies. Many local anglers sat patiently beside a promising stretch of river on basketwork lidded stools from Roberts and, with any luck, plopped many fish into a Roberts creel.... The Butter Market of today has two long-fronted delicatessen stalls along one side with the Glenys Thomas cafe at the end. One stall was opened in 1937 by Mrs Kate Griffiths and run later by her son Billy Griffiths and his wife Elunid and now by their son, Peter Griffiths. Dennis Oscar Evans and his wife Gloria have the other stall. The family business started in 1847 when Oscar's great-grandfather, who was a founder of Saron Chapel in Treforest, came to the old Pontypridd market. Then, over 110 years ago, Oscar's grandfather, David Evans, came to the present spot in the Butter Market. He served as a member of the Pontypridd Urban District Council from 1901 to 1919 and was chairman of the PUDC at the ceremonial opening in April 1909 of the White Bridge over the River Taff at the Berw. David Evans was known locally and at five other Welsh markets where he stood as 'Dai Black Pudding'. He discovered a tasty and unique recipe for the sausage-shaped delicacy and the secret, unwritten recipe has been passed down through the family. The art of preparation still used by Oscar was included in a recent exhibition at the Museum of Welsh Life at St Fagans. © Don Powell 1996
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