Julie,
It is a pity all the best Smithy's and Long Houses, etc, in MGY and RADS
went to St Fagans, they would have been a very good local tourist attraction
here now. Cardiff gets it all in Wales!! In the Mid and late 1800's the nearby
Van Mines were still working, with a railway link to Newtown, and the
Smithy,etc, would have been very busy I think. The 1881 census listed many still
there.
See that also in the Devils Bridge area, where the tourist narrow guage
railway still runs to Aberystwyth, and was once used by the Mines in that area at
Cwmystwyth, etc. And the very detailed A4 book ' Wallers's Description of
the Mines in Cardiganshire' by David Bick, published by Black Dwarf
Publications at £10-00. See website _www.lightmoor.co.uk_ (
http://www.lightmoor.co.uk)
for more info re the Mines books. The book ' Peacocks in Paradise' tells of
the grand old house called Hafod and the life of the Jones family and others
then.
Best regards,
Dennis Cleaton
Rads, Powys