Disruption due to digging up roads is nothing new!
Looking back with Llantwit Major History Society
Over the last few months many of us in Llantwit Major have been inconvenienced by road closures and disruptions as trenches were dug to install the pipe work for upgrading broadband.
However, looking back over 100 years and longer, we see that our grumbling is not a new phenomenon as the town (then a village) gradually gained modern facilities.
Mains water (formally water was pumped from Frampton reservoir) was first installed in Boverton Road in 1927, soon after the first Barons Close houses were built. During the next couple of years, trenches were dug by hand. Probably, some of the workers had been digging trenches in France 10 years previously.
We had a postal service from 1844 and limited telephone system from 1899 (see Aspects of Llantwit Major Volume 7) and around 1897 there was huge disruption, with much complaint, when the railway was built and ancient paths and tracks were lost. Some railway crossings still exist where you hear the trains sounding their horns.
In 1931, the first electricity was brought in over three phases, completed about 1934. In more modern times, we have endured the building of the bypass and the upgrading of the sewage system, with the installing of the treatment plant on the Wick Road and pumping station on the meadows, with all the underground connections.
All these improvements have combined to make our town more convenient and such a desirable place to live and do business.
HM
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