I received in the post today, from Dominic Conway, the reconstruction drawing of Cefnmeurig farmhouse as it might have looked around 1800. I'm really pleased with the finished drawing.
We have assumed that it would have had the appearance of a long house with the animals housed where the c1890 kitchen extension is now. The roof would have been lower than it is at present and we have assumed that the roof was thatched although there is strong evidence of a slate roof being in place before the "new" 1890 roof was raised. The yellow limewash matches the wash found in the hallway. The garden walls are drawn as stone although I suspect that they might have been wooden or mixed hedges as stone was quite scarce.
My 4 times great grand parents, David and Jane John, were living in Cefnmeurig in 1800 with their five children. David John (1751-1821) was born on the farm and in 1779 he married Jane Griffith (1759-1840) from the neighbouring farm of Aber. Their daughter (my 3 times great grandmother), Esther (1784-1862) married the boy next door in 1804, Benjamin Morris (1763-1823) of Llwyntreharne. Their son, my great great grandfather Thomas Morris (1811 - ?) married widow Mary Richards in 1866, six years after the birth of their son Caleb Morris, my great grandfather. In fact they had three children before they were married.
I was really shocked when I discovered this, all the relatives I have known have been very strict non-conformists who took a very dim view indeed of "relations" outside marriage. I was a little bit concerned that my mother would be rather upset to learn that her grandfather was born outside marriage. She said she wasn't bothered as she did not have a very high opinion of her grandfather. He was a very hard man who was very tough on his children. However he did give each of his 10 children a dowry or house or farm when they were adults. He gave my grandmother, Mary Morris, £500 on the occasion of her marriage in 1914 to William Phillips of Cefnmeurig but after she was killed in 1932 he asked my grandfather William, for the money back. My grandfather gave him the money straight away but did not have any further contact with his father in law. He did not stop his children seeing their grandfather Caleb though.
I suspect that Caleb behaved the way he did because he had a very hard upbringing. Before his parents married he lived in a hovel on Llwyntreharne land and his mother was officially described as a pauper. All his step brothers (from his father's first marriage) died young and Caleb had to take on the responsibility of running the farm of Llwyntreharne before he was 18. He probably knew what it was like not to have enough food, clothes and heating and had to grow up very quickly.
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