Another Look at Dic Penderyn
The Family Farm
Our ancestor David Jones did indeed work a farm in Aberavon but the name may not have been ‘Walnut Tree Farm’.
In the years 1790 and 1791 david="" jones=" was Portreeve of Aberavon. Another descendant of David’s says that she was brought up calling the farm 'Pear Tree Farm'. A study of the 1841 Tithe Map held at the National Library of Wales and documents contained within the Jersey Estate Papers held at West Glamorgan Archives suggest there was a farm between two narrow lanes in Aberavon town centre – Walnut Tree Lane and Pear Tree Lane. The Jersey Estate Records refer to the house next to this farm as “Ty Dan y Collen” – “the house under the hazel tree” and Arthur Rees, local historian, suggests that Pear Tree Lane may just have been named to complement Walnut Tree Lane. There was a Pub/Hotel at the junction of these lanes called “The Walnut Tree Hotel”. Another family story, handed down orally through the generations, says that Walnut Tree Farm was “across the road from the family shop on the corner of Water Street”. Pictures in local books show a farm in Water Street, not far from St Mary’s Church and now the site of a Health Centre. Some local historians say that this farm was known as Pear Tree Farm.
Wherever the location of the farm, David Jones would not have employed Dic in the 1830s – Dic had left the town before 1819 and was dead by 1831. However apart from this error, is there truth in the story?