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2 unusual facts about Glamorganshire Canal


Glamorganshire Canal

The canal company attempted to recover £17,000 from the Dadfords, and had them arrested, but two independent surveyors employed by the engineer Robert Whitworth judged largely in the Dadfords' favour, and only £1,512 was refunded.

In 1786, Richard Crawshay and partners took over the lease of the Cyfarthfa Ironworks, and soon engaged the canal engineer Thomas Dadford to survey a route for a canal to Cardiff.


Abercynon

The village was the terminus of the world's first steam railway journey when on 21 February 1804 the inventor Richard Trevithick drove a steam locomotive hauling both iron and passengers travelled from the Penydarren ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil to the basin of the Glamorganshire Canal at Abercynon.

South Wales Coalfield

Tramway-fed canals such as the Swansea Canal and Glamorganshire Canal were supplemented, and then superseded, by the development of numerous competing railway branches which fed docks principally at Swansea, Cardiff, Newport, Llanelli and Barry.


see also

1794 in Wales

Richard Hill is accused by the owners of the Glamorganshire Canal of improperly taking water from the Taff river which for his Plymouth ironworks.