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Home » Articles » Sketches of the Cynon Valley by the Bacon Sisters, 1830sSketches of the Cynon Valley by the Bacon Sisters, 1830s
Sketches of the Cynon Valley in the 1830s by the grand-daughters of Anthony Bacon, one of Merthyr Tydfil's first ironmasters.
Sketches of the Cynon Valley in the 1830s by the grand-daughters of Anthony Bacon, one of Merthyr Tydfil's first ironmasters.
The Bacon sisters were grandchildren of Anthony Bacon, one of Merthyr Tydfil's founding ironmasters. Upon his death in 1786 his estate was divided between his sons, with Anthony Bacon II establishing himself as a gentleman at Aberaman, and Thomas Bacon retiring to Berkshire.
It is Thomas Bacon's daughters who are responsible for this series of sketches, most of which appear to have been drawn during summer visits to their uncle's estate in the Cynon Valley, although they also include two sketches of the Llangollen area. Although they were the daughters of an ironmaster, the subjects depicted in the Bacon sisters' sketches are almost exclusively rural with great emphasis on rivers, bridges, and cottages. The canals, ironworks and tramways that were beginning to spread across the Aberdare and adjacent valleys are almost entirely absent. Even so, these sketches provide an idyllic insight into the beauty of the Aberdare area prior to the transformations wrought by iron and coal mining.
