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The next chapter in the water supply saga was the decision by the local council in 1930 to provide pipes and taps for the villagers to install a piped supply as long as the villagers did all the work. One scheme was to pipe water from a spring below Cwmbwa with a tap near the bridge and another by the Hall for the benefit of the upper villagers. The other was a pipe from a spring adjacent to the stream below Ty-n-cwm with taps behind the old school, one on the square and others down the road at Dawelfan and Panteg. At Gloucester Cottages there was a tap near the present bus stop from a source in the woods. This proved to be an unreliable supply and in dry summers the villagers had to resort to hiking up to Broncastellan again. The method adopted was to pipe water from a spring into a slate-built cistern (see photo) which served to store water and then into the service pipe. I recall many times, when the flow slowed in spring that we had to go to the source to clean out the frog spawn which was blocking the pipe. So it was until a filter house was built in 1939 in Bontcoch to treat water from the Craig-y-pistyll reservoir and the mains water served the village with taps behind the old school, on the square by the war memorial up the road to Penrhyn-canol and taps to both rows of houses in Garth. One still had to carry water but this time they saved on shoe leather.
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