Treorchy

The village of Treorchy apparently takes its name from the stream that flows from the mountainside above the village into the River Rhondda; on the 1875 Ordnance Survey map of this area the stream is referred to as ‘ Nant Orky’, and Treorchy itself is spelt Treorky. The word Gorchi possibly comes from the welsh word Gorchwy, suggesting a stream marking a boundary. Prior to industrialisation the Tithe maps of the area show an unpopulated area of scattered farmhouses, such as Abergorchwy, Tile-du, and Glyn Coli. The area was predominantly meadows, pastures and woodland and farmed by tenant farmers such as Walter Edwards, Llewellyn Lewis and Mary Evans. Much of the land, in common with most of the Rhondda at that time, was owned by one of the great families of Glamorgan with much of Treorchy coming under the domain of the Marquis of Bute Estate.

However in the 1850’s the nature of the area began to change with the beginning of the exploitation of the Upper Rhondda’s coal seams. This process was begun in 1855 with the opening of the Tylacoch Colliery followed in 1859 and 1860 by the Abergorchy and Glynoli Levels and the Abergorchy Colliery in 1865. Additionally the opening of the Parc and The Dare collieries in the nearby village of Cwmparc led to expansion of Treorchy with thousands of immigrants flooding into the area in search of work.

Hundreds of new houses were built to cater for this influx, as well as chapels to cater for their religious needs, and public houses and shops soon sprang up. By the 1900’s Treorchy was a major shopping and social centre within the Rhondda.

Treorchy from its earliest days was renowned as a cultural centre, and even today is home to the world famous Treorchy Male Choir as well as the Parc and Dare Theatre which hosts numerous local amateur plays, musicals, operas etc. as well as professional ones from all over the world. In 1928 Treorchy was also the venue chosen for the most prestigious event in the welsh cultural calendar, that of the Welsh National Eisteddfod, the only time it has ever been held in the Rhondda.

With the decline of mining in the twentieth century Treorchy was better placed than many of the other villages in the Rhondda. Unlike many of the other villages Treorchy hosted a number of other industries, most notably the factories of companies such as Polikoff’s , a clothing manufacturer, as well as a factory of the corporate giant EMI, and T.C.Jones part of the 600 group a steel construction factory. As such the desolation some villages underwent with the cessation of large scale mining operations, and the hardships and unemployment this entailed, were in some measure avoided in Treorchy.