THE HISTORY of Pontypool is inextricable linked with the history of one family, their house and parkland and their investment in the development of the industries of the valley – noticeably iron, tin, coal and steel.

The Hanbury family were first connected to the area in the sixteenth century when Richard Hanbury first travelled to south Wales in 1570 to view his investments in Monmouthshire.

From the time his grandson Capel Hanbury purchased a ‘piece of waste ground’ called ‘Pontepoole’ in 1655, the family lived and managed their assets from the town.

The foundations of Pontypool Park House were begun in 1681 with the parklands laid out and established with deer by the end of the seventeenth century by Major John Hanbury.

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With the Hanbury family in residence at Pontypool Park by the turn of the eighteenth century, for over two hundred years the house and park were the focus of activity and the reason for the growth of the town.

The majority of local residents were in the direct or indirect employment through their industrial interests of the Hanburys.

Education, welfare and housing were all benefactors from these interests too and during the next two centuries, most Pontypool social events and activities were also centred around the family or took place within the parklands.

After the family gifted the house to the Roman Catholic Order of the Holy Ghost in 1920 for establishment of a convent school, the park was purchased by the three local, urban district councils of Pontypool, Abersychan and Panteg.

Currently the former Hanbury family house is St Alban’s RC High School, the family’s stables and carriage block is the Torfaen Museum and the north gate lodge houses are the offices of Sight Cymru.

The Park and the latter two buildings have become the responsibility of Torfaen County Borough Council.

The photograph shows the netball pitch of the Convent school, probably in the 1920s or early 1930s.

Nostalgia is provided by Torfaen Museum.