Pontnewynydd

Welcome to Pontnewyndd Methodist Church

We gather for worship every Sunday afternoon at 4pm. All are warmly welcomed.

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Organist Celebrates 70 Years

Our Organist John Griffiths is celebrating 70 years of being behind the keys. He started playing at the chapel in 1940 when he played for the Sunday School. The story has been taken up by local newspapers South Wales Argus and the Pontypool Free Press. South Wales Argus (click to enlarge): Pontypool Free Press (click to enlarge):

Osmond Family - Memorial Tapestries

In the middle of the 19C George Osmond brought his young family from Gloucester to the Eastern Valley of Gwent where his son Albert (1854-1912) was born. Albert married Priscilla Williams and set up a confectionary business at 24 St. Luke's Road (opposite our Pontnewynydd chapel). This couple's elder daughter, Elizabeth was born there and in due course met and married an Ebbw Vale man, Abram Jones, and went to that town to live. There their first daughter, Gladys, was born but, as often happened in those days, Gladys was 'given' to the grandparents in Pontnewynydd when the Jones' second child came along. Gladys was then 'brought up' by her grandmother and became known in the village as 'Glad Osmond'. As a young adult Gladys went to London to work and there eventually met and married Edwin Evans - himself of Welsh descent - and in February 1932 Jillian was born. Obviously to retain the old family name Gladys gave 'Osmond' to her child as a second name. However, in 1939, when her husband was called up for Army service, arrangements were made for mother and daughter to come home to Wales. Gladys initially came to Pontnewynydd to care for her ailing grandmother, Priscilla, and 7 year old Jillian went to Ebbw Vale to stay with her grandmother. Jillian came to Pontnewynydd at 11 years of age so that she could attend the Secondary School where her mother had studied 25 years earlier. In Pontnewynydd Jillian's group of new friends included John Griffiths (our Church Organist) who also lived on the same street and it was through his assembling a Family Tree and discovering that his grandmother's cousin became an 'Osmond' on marrying Jillian's grandmother's cousin and hence he started delving into the Osmond line. This resulted in Jillian and John meeting and he sharing the story of the chapel fire in 1989 and the now absent text over the Communion Table. Jillian, who is an accomplished needlewoman, offered her skills to replace the written words on the old wall with tapestries in memory of the Osmond family the last of whom to be members of the local fellowship were her great grandparents, Albert and Priscilla Osmond.