Site Record

This terrace of houses was demolished in 1970. They may have been the earliest examples of the "catslide outshot" type identified by Jeremy Lowe, and associated with ironworks controlled by the Crawshay family. Lowe's database records sixteen of this type, but the Ordnance Survey 25-inch map of 1876 suggests that by then there were twenty-one houses. The sixteen were arranged as mirrored pairs, with living room fireplaces and half-spiral stone stairs in the thick dividing walls between the pairs. The single upper rooms were open to the roof, and a pantry and second bedroom occupied the ground floor space under the catslide roof. Roof timbers were a mixture of oak and softwood with pegged dovetail joints, the softwood showing that they were probably built after 1794 when the Glamorganshire Canal was opened.
W J Crompton, RCAHMW, 2 December 2009.
Additional information in Jeremy Lowe database of workers housing, ref 375, and Iron Industry Housing Papers, No 5.