CROESYCEILIOG or ‘Cross of the Cockerels’ is shown on the OS map of 1880 as a scattering of houses, cottages, two tinplate works, Baptist Chapel, Board School, smithy, post office and the Upper and Lower Cock inns or ‘public houses’.

The development of the area can largely be attributed to the Conway family who came from Glamorgan to live there in the 1770s.

The family settled in Pontrhydrun House at the bottom of Chapel Lane and over the years members of the Conway family built and lived in several houses including Pontnewydd House.

In 1806, William Conway established the Edlogan Tinworks and in 1815 Pontrhydrun Chapel for tin workers and their families.

Also on the 1880 map is a row of workers cottages, built for the Edlogan Tin Works, known as Garw Row.

This cottages, like all contemporary nineteenth century workers housing were quite basic, with flagstone floors, outside ‘privvies’ or Tŷ Bachs (little houses) in a row at the back, whose sewerage ran into a communal drain and into the Afon Lwyd.

Garw Row also had a communal water pump and a communal bread oven which served all the residents.

During the 1970s, the Cwmbran Development Corporation decided to restore and refurbish Garw Row, rather than demolish it and build new houses.

In 1978, the Corporation won a Welsh Office Medal for their imaginative and successful restoration of the row.

Nostalgia is provided by Torfaen Museum.