This cache's name may have caused a little puzzlement for what looks like an ordinary cache near a trig-point. The name is derived from what happened in the small bungalow and compound immediately north of the cache's location in the late '30s and early '40s. Originally called Tor Cloud, probably a corruption of the welsh Tor Clawdd - and indeed that is the name with which the house is now known.
In the late 1930s, an inventor named Henry Grindell Matthews suddenly moved into this location because of its solitude and immediately started building a laboratory so that he could experiment on some of his more outlandish inventions. He was the talk of the town in the local area and soon, he had surrounded the entire compound with a 15 ft tall electrified fence further enhancing the speculation in the surrounding towns.
It has only recently come to light that Matthews was well ahead of Marconi in the early years of the 20th century in developing speech over radio (calling it the Aerophone) when Marconi was still experimenting with Morse code transmissions.
Matthews had gained notoriety in the 1920s by claiming he had invented a "death ray" that could stop engines, illuminate light bulbs at a distance with no other visible connection. bring down planes and even claimed that his electrical ray could "kill a man instantaneously, painlessly and cleanly." Because of this he gained the nickname Death Ray Matthews - several convincing demonstrations were given to press and the public but he refused to allow his invention be tested under laboratory conditions and so, the government and then his investors eventually lost interest.
One of the more successful inventions he demonstrated was a powerful beam that could project images onto clouds. Although successfully demonstrated, they failed to get backing and were commercial failures.
By the time he moved to Tor Cloud, he was working on other projects but the secrecy, the security and the notoriety caused all sorts of speculation among the locals including the worry that he was creating an earthquake creating machine, a rocket to the moon (he was also experimenting with rocketry) and some even speculated that he was inventing a weather controlling machine!
Tor Cloud
Many believed that he was back at work perfecting the death ray - possibly this rumour was even enhanced when the press gained access to his laboratory in the late 1930s and were given demonstrations of his experiments. It is known that he was also working on aerial torpedoes and a device to detect submarines at distances up to 30 miles.
In 1938, he married Madame Ganna Walska, a fabulously wealthy Polish Opera singer, but such was his eccentricity that she went on the honeymoon alone - he rushed back to Tor Cloud to continue his experiments!
The experimentation was never completed - Matthews died of a heart attack in 1941 and within hours of his ashes being scattered on the mountainside nearby, the laboratory was packed up and the experimental paraphernalia removed by Government Officials and agents from Military Intelligence.
Today, the security and fences are long gone and Tor Clawdd is a private dwelling curiously located on the mountainside in the middle of common land. Please respect the current residents' privacy as they have no relation to the famous eccentric scientist! Please don't drive up the track-way (you'd probably need a 4x4 to do this anyway) as it's a private road to the farm, but walking along it and then up from the gateway is probably the easiest route to the cache.
While writing up the cache entry, a conversation with an elderly gentleman earlier on this year came to mind where he talked about the "eccentric scientist" who lived up on the mountain. He can still remember seeing powerful beams and flashes of light coming from the direction of Tor Cloud lighting up the night sky - he firmly believed they were deflecting German bombers from Swansea. At the time I thought he may have mistaken this with a nearby Starfish decoy site to attract bombers away from Swansea (very close to GC10PGG, Carreg Bica - Mynydd Drumau cache) - but that's in completely the wrong direction to where he saw the lights, but quite correct for this location.
For more information on this subject, see this local history web site or this Wikipedia page.
