The Border Vale of Glamorgan - David J Francis (Preloved)

This volume represents a new approach to local history studies in Wales. The author, David Francis, a native of Llanharry, has taken a small but distinct region and given it an 'in depth' treatment. The Border Vale, that part of the Vale of Glamorgan lying roughly between Llanharan and Pontyclun in the north and Pencoed and Pendoylan in the south, has never before been treated as the subject of a book.

The Border Vale covers today a variety of types of community, from mining in the west to agricultural and commuting in the east, but these are only the latest chapter in an unfinished story. Here the Romans came in search of lead and iron, here the Welsh fought the Normans for nearly two hundred years after the Saxons had yielded at Hastings, and from this district came some of the preachers whose hell-fire sermons raised Welsh nonconformity to the pinnacle of its influence in the nineteenth century.

Mr Francis gives a masterly survey of the development of the Border Vale and then goes on to reveal the rich cultural life of each village in word and illustration. The photographs are derived from numerous sources, but many, the work of Haydn Baynham, have been specially commissioned for this volume.

• S. Williams, 1976
• English language
• Hardback with dust jacket, 146 pages with black and white photos
• Measures 21 x 1.7 x 13.5 cm

Condition: very good: a well cared for copy.