With much sadness I decided last year that the time had come to part with the Toll House – officially South Gate. The 200 mile journey from my Epsom home had simply become a journey too far. So, after 27 years as Toll Keeper, I am transferring the title to Richard and Rosemary Weale, who love Rhayader and the countryside and have enjoyed the friendly welcome from Rhayader folk.
It is getting on for 100 years since I was first brought as an infant to my father’s birthplace in the rambling old Tegid House in West Street – now converted to the Spar. Thereafter I spent all my holidays here for the next 50 years of more.
I stayed with Grandparents Robert and “Polly” Worthing, with Aunts Maud, Gwladys and Ethel and Uncles Bob and Fred. I had wonderful times climbing the peak; picking wild strawberries and later hazel nuts up Dark Lane; watching from the old bridge the salmon leaping the weir to spawn upriver; playing with the Collard children – Eira, Jean and Eddie – or enjoying Aunty Jinnie Worthing’s scrumptious teas with cousins Blodwen, Megan, Enid, Reg and Frankie in North Street (now the Chinese takeaway(.
On Saturday mornings we all went down to the cinema in the old Drill Hall, now Macey’s. For two pence you could sit, entranced, on a very hard bench to watch silent films starring Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. Magic!
How we loved the Carnival too! One year cousin Enid, my brother Roy and Eddie Collard won a prize for a tableau “Wedding of the Painted Doll”. I charlestoned all the way behind them as “Charleston Baby” and won a prize too. Goodie!
The Sabbath was definitely kept holy in those days. Among other taboos you did not turn your feather mattress, or cut your finger nails or play games on Sundays. You wore your best clothes – plus hat and gloves – to go three times to Chapel and/or Sunday School. After supper the entire village (as it was then) would come out on their doorstep to sing yet more hymns. The origin of “Songs of Praise”? I shouldn’t be surprised ….
I was nearing retirement when I decided I must have my own tiny piece of my beloved Rhayader. One wet Autumn evening I looked through the Toll House letterbox and said “That’s it!” Love at first sight – even if it was a very derelict ruin. But the late Bernard Morgan Lloyd and sons Wyn and Michael did a wonderful restoration job using material from old buildings being demolished in the Elan Valley.
There followed a fascinating time researching the origin of Toll House. It was built for £10 or £12 in 1799 in the reign of “Mad” King George III, of local Old Wacky granite. We were at war with France at the time. The building measured 6 yards by 4 yards, set in 2 roods and 2 perches of meadow and pasture where the Toll Keeper could keep poultry and livestock or grow fruit and vegetables. The land stretched far down Caeherbert Lane and down to Bryngwy. All comers had to stop at the heavy spiked gate right across the narrow rutted lane. They had to pay the toll to pass through – one shilling for a stage coach, 4 pence for a sedan chair, 2 pence for a score of sheep or hogs and one penny for an unladen horse, mule or ass. The proceeds were used to build the road to Builth.
Intense resentment t the toll resulted in the bizarre Rebecca Riots in 1839, just two years after the young Victoria was crowned. Three of Rhayader’s six gates were gutted by the rioters. Toll House gate was torched but the cottage spared. Local legend has it that this was because the Toll Keeper – a woman at the time – was in league with the Rebecca. Could there have been a love affair? A romantic idea …. But not a shred of evidence!
By 1897 ownership of South Gate had passed to the Rev. W S Prickard, grandfather of Lady Holland of Dderw. He generously gave land and property to Bethel Baptist Chapel for the erection of a church and manse and in 1981 the chapel sold the little Toll House to me, Beatrice Worthing.