Through Our Eyes

Personal Perspectives of Working Life in Treorchy

In August 2024, Altered Images worked in partnership with RCT Arts Service to run the ‘Through Our Eyes’ project which recorded the memories and stories of past and current independent business owners on Treorchy’s high street, and former employees of factories owned by big corporations which are now closed.

Prior to industrialisation, Treorchy was an unpopulated area of scattered farmhouses with meadows, pastures and woodlands farmed by tenant farmers. In the 1850s, the area changed with the opening of the collieries in the Upper Rhondda. Hundreds of new houses were built to cater for the thousands of immigrants who came flooding into the area in search of work, as well as chapels, public houses and shops. By the 1900s, Treorchy was a major shopping and social centre within the Rhondda.

With the decline of mining in the twentieth century, Treorchy was better placed than many other villages in the Rhondda, as it hosted a number of other industries, most notably the factories of companies such as Polikoff's and EMI. In recent times, Treorchy’s strong sense of community and individuality has led to the prestigious accolade of being named High Street of the Year 2020.

These personal accounts demonstrate how the world of work is an ever-changing one as jobs and industries adapt to economic challenges, changing needs, and new technologies. They also illustrate the independent nature and resilience of Treorchy’s high street; the town’s lost industries; and its family businesses which have passed from one generation to the next, from the twentieth century to the present day.