Photo: Grave of John Davy Brazell overlooking the valley

Godre’r Graig Cemetery

This sits on a hillside site at Godre’r Graig overlooking the former Tareni Colliery. The views today are of wooded mountains, with a number of former colliery waste tips still extant and ruins of colliery buildings high on the mountainside opposite, but it is still part of the local communities. Highly respected miners’ leader, councillor and staunch labour supporter J.D. Brazell has a prominent gravestone overlooking the mine where he worked (see ‘Coal Mining Heroes’) having been laid to rest after the biggest funeral ever seen in Ystalyfera at that date.

Close by is the grave of another noted local person “Llaethferch”. This was the pseudonym of Mary Ann Francis for her entries in the eisteddfods. Her grave has a prominent pink marble column with Welsh inscriptions “Dial un mor hwawdl oedd yn fywydd y tyrfaoedd”, which translates into English as “Someone so well-known among the artistic masses”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

RETURN TO SNIPPETS Snippets from the Book