This district was named after George Crawshay, the son of William I, who married a French ironmaster’s daughter after visiting the ironworks of France. This area grew up mainly from the 1820s onwards ( alongside Cyfarthfa Castle built in 1825 ) and is located on the 1841 census returns; identified as ‘North’ or ‘South’ Georgetown. The area reflects the typical industrial housing of the time, with cat-slide roofs etc. and properties built back to back, with numerous courts and alleys. In the Georgetown area was once Coffins Court, where the Court of Requests was attacked and destroyed in the Merthyr Rising of 1831. The Three Horse Shoes public house is here also, which, according to legend is where Dic Penderyn used to attend meetings. Later Chartists were reputed to have held their political meetings here. The River Taff runs through this district. The Glamorgan Canal from Merthyr to Cardiff began at the Cyfarthfa Works and ran through the Georgetown area, passing along Chapel Row, where the musician Doctor Joseph Parry was born in 1841.  His birthplace, number 4 Chapel Row, is now an interesting small museum, reflecting the 1850s when the Parry family lived here. A short distance from Chapel Row was Bethesda Chapel, where his mother taught Sunday School.  At the end of Chapel Row are the ruins of a large octagonal building with white limestone archways. This was the Chapel of Ease for the Cyfarthfa workers which was built in 1800 by the Crawshays, but by 1851 was used as a storehouse. Legend has it that the famous Cyfarthfa Band held their practice sessions here.  The first Roman Catholic Church of St Mary’s was in Georgetown. This building then became a lodging house for the Spanish workers after 1900 and then a store house. This was an area of dense housing with a large population. The old Georgetown has been demolished (together with Georgetown schools and Bethel Chapel); although the old houses had disappeared by the early 1970s, there is now a new Georgetown with luxury modern houses.

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