Justice Williams of Hafodafal

Justice Williams of Hafodafal

The Williamses of Hafodafal Farm 

Hafodafal Farm is a Welsh long-house and barn dating to the 17th century standing on the mountain between Cwm and Cwm Beeg.  The house is now almost entirely roofless and is largely in ruins.

Hafodafal (from Hafod-afael) means the summer holding or tenure and, in the late 18th century, there were "four delightful habitations and estates upon this delightful mountain; and among the rest, and beyond the rest, a house of Justice Williams, well built and delightful, and the air very wholesome about it" (Jones 1779, 58).

The Williamses of Hafodafal were one of three prominent native families who owned large farms or estates in the Ebbw Fawr valley at the beginning of the 18th century; the other being the Miles family of Ty Llwyn and Pen y Cae and the Lewises of Drysiog (Gray-Jones 1970, 15).  The Williamses were evidently renowned for their good looks, as Edmund Jones commented in 1779: 

"In the former part of this Century there were ten or twelve of the female sex, most of them of the Havodavel family, who, had they appeared together, would have made a very taking appearance, such as would have no reason to be ashamed of their personal appearance in any company in the World." (Jones 1779, 60)

In 1733, Edmund Williams left "Ten Bushels of Oatmeal to be divided among the poor of the Parish" and ten shillings each to two maids and two manservants.  After providing amply for his wife he left the residue to his three year old son, William (Gray-Jones 1970, 25). 

In later life, this William Williams was known as Justice Williams, from his being a magistrate, probably the only one in the district.  He was a man of considerable property, keeping a pack of hounds, and was known locally as Justice Crys Coch (the Justice of the Red Shirt) from his habit of always wearing red flannel shirts (Bradney 1906, 474).  He was born in 1730 and had been to school in England where he learned a little Latin and Greek (Gray-Jones 1970, 24).  It seems that William Williams was appointed to the magistracy in about 1760 (ibid., 15).  He died, at the early age of 49, on 24th March 1779.   

A tablet to his memory which once hung on the west wall of Aberystruth church was silent about his virtues, but a scurrilous pamphlet printed in 1774 described him as a drunkard and an immoral man, grasping and selfish and a familiar figure at the Abergavenny fairs and at Llandrindod Wells and often seen in Bristol.  Certainly, his will is in sharp contrast to his father's: it is poorly phrased and abrupt and looks as if he drew it up himself.  He left nothing to the poor of the parish, and his son Edmund who inherited most of the estate was "ordered" to pay his sister Margaret £200 on certain conditions (ibid., 25). 

According to Edmund Jones, Hafodafal was much frequented by the fairies: 

"The Fairies seem not to delight in open plain grounds of any kind, far from stones and wood, nor in watery, but in dry grounds, not far from Trees and Hedges, and the shade of grown Trees, the female Oak especially . . . Of all the places in the Parish of Aberystruth, they most frequently appeared at Havodavel, and Keven Bach, which are dry lightsome pleasant places." (Jones 1779, 76-7)

Some local people declared that the Fairies had a leader among them: 

"Thomas William Edmund of Havodavel an honest pious man, who often saw them declared, that they appeared with one bigger then the rest going before them in the Company."(ibid., 72)


References

Bradney, J.  1906.  A History of Monmouthshire: The Hundred of Abergavenny
 Vol. I, Pt 2b (9 vols; repr. Academy Books, 1992).
Gray-Jones, A.  1970. A History of Ebbw Vale (Risca: A Gray-Jones).
Jones, E.  1779.  A Geographical, Historical and Religious Account of the Parish of Aberystruth (Trefecca).