Navigation House Cardiff Road, Abercynon
Merthyr Tydfil and the other iron centres on the northern rim of the South Wales coalfield were badly placed with regard to the transport of their products to the ports, initially the pig iron was carried to the coast by packhorses bearing panniers. Roads were eventually built but, while a wagon drawn by four horses could convey two tons of goods, a canal barge was drawn by one horse and could convey twenty-five tons. In the 1800’s, all the main valleys of the South Wales coalfield had been linked to ports by canals. It was the canals that truly launched the coalfields on its spectacular growth in the 1800’s. The canals remained the dominant form of transport until the railways overtook them in the 1840s.
The Navigation Public House was once the head office of the Glamorganshire Canal Company and at one stage the largest Iron exchange in the world was run from this building.
The area around the Navigation Public House is known as the basin and is where they maintained the canal boats. The feeder pipe bridge was built in 1857 and was constructed as part of a feeder canal to provide an improved water supply to the Glamorganshire Canal system between Abercynon and Cardiff.
