Hopkinstown

Hopkinstown situated on the north side of Pontypridd. takes its name from Evan Hopkln. owner of the Ty Mawr estate on which the first houses were built during the late 1840s.

Evan Hopkln, the son of Evan and Anne Hopkln, was born at Sty-Nyll in the parish of St Brides-super-Ely In 1798. In 1805 hIs father died and left Evan money which he would inherit at the age of twenty one. The following year his grandfather, also named Evan Hopkin, died and young Evan. then still only seven years old, became heir to his grandfather’s estates although these remained in the hands of his guardians until after he came of age.

While a young man Evan Hopkln moved to Oaksey, a small village in north Wiltshire where local records show him styled as a ‘yeoman’. It was there that he married Lucy Hawkins, dau$hter of a local landowner. She died in 1830 leaving him with three young children. He himself stayed on in Oaksey until the mid 1830s before returning to Glamorgan to look after the Inherited estates, having taken formal possession of these in 1822.

During the 1 840s the fifty one acre Ty Mawr estate began to take on commercial importance. The Ty Mawr collieiy was sunk and an iron foundry and coke ovens were erected. In 1847 a lease was signed for a plot where the Ty Mawr Chemical Works (later known as the Rhondda Chemical Works) were built. The development of industry created a need for housing. Hopklnstown began to develop as a single row of houses overlooking the River Taff: the name Hopklnstown was already in official use by 1850.

Evan Hopkin died in January 1869 at Ty Picka House, Hopklnstown and was buried at St Fagans. His will refers to his ‘freehold lands called Tymawr and Typicka’.