Y Bont: 2005: December:

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December 2005

In the years between 1861 & 1871, Margaret Jones senior, and the husband of her daughter Margaret, had died.

Census for No 4 Sycamore Terrace, 1871
Head Margaret Jones aged 53 Widow Shopkeeper Daughter Elizabeth aged 17, Margaret aged 12, Son David aged 8 Plus lodgers

Census for No 4 Sycamore Terrace, 1881
Head Margaret Jones aged 63 Widow Shopkeeper Son David aged 18 Joiner.

In November 1890 David, aged 27, married Jane Evans in the Methodist Chapel of the village which, since the coming of the railway in 1864, gradually came to be known as Carrog.

When Henry Robertson built the railway which came along the Dee valley the first station to be created was called ‘Berwyn’. The next stop was in the middle of the townships of Mwstwr and Tir Llanerch and the name given here was ‘Glyndyfrdwy’ Nearly three miles further on, near to the farm of Pen y Bont and to the parish of Llansantffraid Glyndyfrdwy, the next station was built. Rather than using this long name, and repeating the name Glyndyfrdwy, the name of the nearby township of ‘Carrog’ was used. In recent years the tiny parish of Llansantffraid Glyndyfrdwy was joined with the parish of Corwen and the old name has all but disappeared as even the Church is now termed ‘Carrog Church’.

In the 1895 Street Directory Margaret Jones is still a grocer. Her son, David Richard Jones is still a joiner but is also keeping the Grouse Inn and has become a respected bard with the bardic name of ‘Berwynfa’. He prospered, opened a wholesale groceries store and built Brynteg next door to No. 4, presumably to help his family.

Margaret’s daughter Elizabeth married a Dafydd Edwards and after Brynteg was built in 1900, they moved there, when Elizabeth was 47, to run the Post Office together with a much grander grocery shop. ( Brynteg at the present day is in two parts - one part being the Post Office and the only remaining village shop, with accommodation above. The other part next door is the house Brynteg.)

Elizabeth had two daughters, Beatrice and another who had tuberculosis and died young.

In the Baptist chapel in Corwen Beatrice married the head master of Carrog Church School. They had no children. Eventually Beatrice seems to have inherited Brynteg and in later life became an invalid in a bath chair. She was reputedly very bad tempered and her downtrodden husband had to care for her as well as running the shop. His teaching job finished after the Church School closed in the early 1920s.

The four cottages of Sycamore Terrace are now in one ownership, three joined as one and No. 4 called ‘Berwynfa’ after Dafydd, the bard.

Valmai Webb