Cwmfelinfach is a small village located in the Sirhowy valley of south-east Wales. It is part of the district of

Caerphilly Caerphilly (, ; cy, Caerffili, ) is a town and community in Wales. It is situated at the southern end of the Rhymney Valley. It is north of Cardiff and northwest of Newport. It is the largest town in Caerphilly County Borough, and lies wit ...

within the historic boundaries of

Monmouthshire Monmouthshire ( cy, Sir Fynwy) is a county in the south-east of Wales. The name derives from the historic county of the same name; the modern county covers the eastern three-fifths of the historic county. The largest town is Abergavenny, with ...

. It is located north of

Wattsville Wattsville is a small village in the Sirhowy Valley, eight miles north west of Newport, built in the 20th century for accommodation for mine workers. Amenities Modern Wattsville consists of two villages, Wattsville and Brynawel. It consists of o ...

, about 5 miles north of the nearest town Risca, and south of

Blackwood Blackwood may refer to: Botany * African blackwood ('' Dalbergia melanoxylon''), a timber tree of Africa * African blackwood (''Erythrophleum africanum''), ('' Peltophorum africanum'') also Rhodesian blackwood, trees from Africa * Australian bla ...

. To the east the valley is bordered by the hills of Pen-y-Trwyn (1,028 ft / 313 m). To the west is

Mynydd y Grug Mynydd y Grug is a hill lying just west of the village of Cwmfelinfach and about 4 km to the northeast of Caerphilly in Caerphilly county borough in South Wales. Its summit was formerly at a height of around 358 m, but since the top has been ...

(1,132 ft / 345 m). Cwmfelinfach can be translated from

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

as "''valley of the little mill''".

History

The village was a small hamlet until the late 19th century; the majority of housing is therefore traditional terraced housing from the early 20th century. A map of 1885 showns the Melin (mill) and the Welsh

Calvinistic Methodist Calvinistic Methodists were born out of the 18th-century Welsh Methodist revival and survive as a body of Christians now forming the Presbyterian Church of Wales. Calvinistic Methodism became a major denomination in Wales, growing rapidly in the 1 ...

chapel, Capel y Babell. The grave of

William Thomas (Islwyn) William Thomas, bardic name A bardic name (, ) is a pseudonym used in Wales, Cornwall, or Brittany by poets and other artists, especially those involved in the eisteddfod movement. The Welsh term bardd ("poet") originally referred to the Welsh ...

, a 19th-century poet in the Welsh language, can be found here. Cwmfelinfach was home to a

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

community during the early to mid 20th century. The colliery, known as "

Nine Mile Point Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station is a nuclear power plant with two nuclear reactors located in the town of Scriba, approximately five miles northeast of Oswego, New York, on the shore of Lake Ontario. The site is also occupied by the James A. ...

", opened in about 1905 and closed in 1964. Nine Mile Point Colliery was the site of the first ever

sit-in A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change. The protestors gather conspicuously in a space or building, refusing to mo ...

of miners; during 1935 there was a "stay-down strike" involving 164 colliers. They were protesting over the use of "Scab" miners (men not members of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, unlike the rest of the "Points" workforce) and their ordeal only ended after the company promised that no non-Federation men would be employed at the colliery; the stay-down strike lasted for 177 hours. Miners from other collieries in the area, some taking similar action, supported their action.

Transport

The village is served by regular buses operated by

Stagecoach Group Stagecoach Group is a transport group based in Perth, Scotland. It operates buses, express coaches and a tram service in the United Kingdom. History Stagecoach was born out of deregulation of the British express coach market in the early ...

to Tredegar and Blackwood in the north, and Newport city centre in the south. Cwmfelinfach is also part of the Celtic Trail cycle route (National Cycle Route 47) which connects West Wales from Fishguard through to Carmarthen, Llanelli, Swansea, Merthyr Tydfil, Newport, and the Severn Bridge in the East.

Notes

External links

Monumental Inscriptions for Y Babelwww.geograph.co.uk : photos of Cwmfelinfach and surrounding areaWelsh Coal Mines website – check out the histories of the local pits
Villages in Caerphilly County Borough {{Caerphilly-geo-stub