Bronze Age Gold from Wales

View of the Barry Railway Company’s newly built Pontypridd Viaduct over the valley of Nant Gelli-wion on the south edge of Pontypridd, looking southwest, around winter 1888/89, prior to the line opening to coal traffic in 1889. The headgear of Maritime Colliery can be seen to the south beyond the viaduct. Wagons lettered ‘Maritime’ stand in a siding on the left which connected northwards to the Taff Vale Railway. The curved siding in the right foreground connected to a brickworks located immediately behind the camera position. Maritime Terrace stands on the hillside to the left (south); behind it can be glimpsed the roofs of Maritime Street. Pontypridd old Signal Box on the extreme left (south east) appears to have been very short-lived, probably because its site formed the north west end of the Barry Railway Company’s Pontypridd Station which opened in 1896 (renamed Pontypridd Graig Station by the Great Western Railway in 1924), the station platforms requiring virtually all the available space between the left (south east) side of the viaduct and Pwllgwaun or Pontypridd Tunnel which was immediately beyond the station. The position of Pontypridd new Signal Box that stood just off the right (north west) side of the viaduct from at least 1898 is beyond the edge of the photograph; it probably replaced Pontypridd old Signal Box on the left (south east) of the viaduct when the station was developed in 1896. Photograph mounted on card.