Town in Torfaen, Wales
Pontypool
Pontypool gave the world shiny black lacquered tinware, a famous rugby pack nicknamed 'Viet Gwent', and a ski slope in the middle of a Welsh park.
Key information
- County
- Torfaen
- Nation
- Wales
- Known for
- Japanware, ironworks and tinplate, the Pontypool rugby pack, Pontypool Park
- Famous people
- Thomas Allgood, John Hanbury, Ray Prosser, Bobby Windsor
About Pontypool
The town that made tin look like lacquer
Long before anyone talked about Pontypool's rugby, the town was famous for japanware. This was tinplate coated in dark, glossy varnish and painted with flowers, birds and scenes, a cheaper cousin of the lacquered goods that arrived from the Far East. The process is linked to Thomas Allgood, who developed the technique here around the turn of the eighteenth century. Trays, boxes, coffee pots and snuffboxes in 'Pontypool japan' were bought across Britain, and the Allgood family later carried the craft to Usk. Pontypool Museum keeps examples, so you can see how a town of furnaces and forges once turned out something quite so elegant.
Ironmasters on the hill
Pontypool grew because of the Hanbury family. They were ironmasters whose works used the streams, woods and coal of the valley, and the business made them rich and made Pontypool one of the early centres of iron and tinplate in Britain. Their home, Pontypool Park, still shapes the town. The big house is now a school, and the old stables hold the museum. Up on the hillside, the Folly Tower is a 1994 reconstruction of the tower John Hanbury originally built in 1765. The original was demolished in 1940. Climb to it on a clear day and you can see across the valley towards the Bristol Channel.
Why Pontypool's pack was called 'Viet Gwent'
Ask any rugby fan what Pontypool means and you will get one answer: the front row. In the 1970s and early 1980s the club, coached by Ray Prosser, built a forward pack so fierce that opponents nicknamed it 'Viet Gwent'. Bobby Windsor, Charlie Faulkner and Graham Price packed down together for the club as the famous Pontypool front row, and they were a driving force for Wales and the British and Irish Lions. Windsor and Price were part of the Lions tour of New Zealand in 1977. Pontypool RFC dates back to 1868 and plays in the park, in the shadow of the old Hanbury estate. The club's scrummaging was legendary, and the town still sells itself on it.
A shell grotto and a ski slope
Pontypool Park is full of surprises. Tucked among the trees is the Shell Grotto, a small garden retreat decorated with shells and stones, the sort of folly that wealthy estates liked to have. Then there is the dry ski slope, one of the better-known artificial slopes in Wales. It is not a sight most people expect in a park on the edge of a valleys town, and generations of local children have learned to turn on it. The park is also a good place to start a walk, with paths running up to the hills above.
Canals, valleys and Pontypool today
Pontypool sits at the southern end of a string of industrial valleys, with the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal running close by. Next door, Blaenavon's ironworks and coal heritage form a World Heritage Site, and the two places tell the same story from different ends. The iron and tin trades faded, but the town kept its park, its museum, its hillside views and its rugby pride. Llandegfedd Reservoir, a short drive away, gives locals sailing and walking space. The name itself is plain Welsh: Pont-y-pŵl, the bridge of the pool. For a town that gave Britain its fancy tinware and a pack of forwards nobody wanted to face, it is a modest label.