Search -
The Severn valley, sketches descriptive and pictorial
The Severn valley sketches descriptive and pictorial Author:John Randall Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LLANIDLOES. CHAPTER II. Llanidloes—The stimulus Railways give—Market Honse—Wattle and Dab—Church of St. Idloes—Abbey of Cwmhir—The Niche Old Nick has ... more »left—Welsh Graveyards—The Severn and the Clywcdog—Course of the Severn along the Vale—Hills —Families—Beavers—Otters—Trout—Wild Fowl—Dick Kinson, fLANIDLOES occupies a pleasant nook at the coiifluence of the Severn and the Clywedog, where the Dulas, Afon Brochan, and other streams with their respective valleys meet. It is to these and their surrounding hills that the town is indebted for its prosperity, for its flour, its fulling, carding, and spinning mills, and the wool which gives employment to its population. Pennant, who wrote about 100 years ago said:—"Llanidloes is a small town with a great market for yarn, which is manufactured into flannels,and sent weekly 'by waggon-loads to Welshpool." Mr. E. Eamer, in his Parochial Account of Llanidloen, whilst commenting upon this statement adds—"It was only the smaller farmers who, after converting their wool into yarn, brought it to market to be sold to the flannel manufacturers; the large farmers as a rule converted their wool into flannel themselves. The manufactured goods were taken to Welshpool fortnightly, the manufacturers bringing their flannels from the fulling-mills on the t-'unday afternoon, and piling them under or near the Old Market Hall, preparatory to being laden upon the large cumbrous waggon which carried them to the Welshpool market." The introduction of machinery however led to a great expansion of the trade, whilst companies with large capital, such as the Welsh flannel and Tweed company, the Cambrian flaanel company, the Phoenix Mill Co., and others, extended the manufacture to other branches of industry, which of course led to the employment of a lar...« less