Former Tredegar workhouse, Queen Square
This row of houses includes the former Twyn y Ddraenen (“thorn hill”) workhouse, where poor people lived. The houses are private residences – please respect the occupants’ privacy and don’t enter the gardens.
When the workhouse was here, parishes distributed the Poor Relief fund, a property tax. Later the law changed, in 1834, and parishes grouped together in “unions”. Bedwellty parish, including Tredegar, was initially part of the Abergavenny union, which built its own workhouse in 1837-38.
In 1842 one of Bedwellty’s overseers of the poor was called to help a young Shropshire man who was seriously ill in the engine house of Beaufort ironworks, near Ebbw Vale. The man died while arrangements were being made to transport him to the workhouse in Abergavenny.
Relying on such a remote facility was unsatisfactory, and in 1849 the newly formed Bedwellty union secured land at St James, south of Tredegar, for its own workhouse. The site was “opposite the stores of Mr Fothergill”, in a “healthy locality”. This workhouse eventually incorporated an infirmary. It introduced education for the child inmates from 1857, long before the Education Act of 1880 made schooling compulsory. The old photo shows the Bedwellty Board of Guardians, which oversaw the workhouse, in 1900.
Walter Conway and his younger brother moved into the workhouse c.1882 after their father died. Walter became a moving force in the Tredegar Workmen’s Medical Aid Society and mentor of Aneurin Bevan, founder of the NHS. He also became chairman of the Bedwellty Board of Guardians, which had been responsible for Walter’s childhood care. You can read more about him on our page about his memorials in Tredegar.
Arianwen Norris Bevan, Aneurin’s sister, lived at 2 Queen Square with her family and mother Phoebe. Aneurin, or “Nye”, used this house as his constituency base when home from Parliament. He met constituents here, listened to their problems and discussed issues affecting his community.
With thanks to Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council and to Tredegar Community Archive for the old photo
Postcode: NP22 3QH View Location Map
Tredegar Community Archive website