Aberbargoed is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

in the County Borough of Caerphilly,

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

. Aberbargoed once contained the largest ever colliery waste tip in Europe, although this has now been reclaimed and turned into a country park. The town is within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire.

Toponymy

' refers to a "confluence" or "mouth" of a river and ' is a "border".

Mining

Coal mining operations in Bargoed Colliery started in 1897 when the

Powell Duffryn Powell may refer to: People * Powell (surname) * Powell (given name) * Powell baronets, several baronetcies *Colonel Powell (disambiguation), several military officers *General Powell (disambiguation), several military leaders * Governor Powell ...

Steam Coal Company started to sink the shaft. In 1901, the "Ras Las" nine-foot seam was discovered at a depth of 625 yards. The north and south shafts were completed. In November 1903, Sir Alfred Thomas, M.P. for East Glamorgan, started the engines to raise the first four trams of coal. By 1910, the pit was employing 1,943 miners and was the largest coal mine in the

Rhymney Valley The Rhymney Valley () is one of the South Wales valleys, with the Rhymney River forming the border between the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire. Between 1974 and 1996 a Rhymney Valley local government district also existed (one ...

. On 10 December 1908, it broke the world record for production when a ten-hour shift produced 3,562

ton Ton is the name of any one of several units of measure. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses. Mainly it describes units of weight. Confusion can arise because ''ton'' can mean * the long ton, which is 2,240 pounds ...

s of

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

. It further broke its own record on 23 April 1909 when 4,020 tons were raised in a ten-hour shift. Bargoed Colliery closed on 4 June 1977. By this time, only 360 men were employed there.

Population

The population of Pont Aberbargoed was 351 in the

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

of 1851. Aberbargoed reached a peak in 1961 of 5,157, and had dropped to 3,882 according to the 1991 Census.

Modern Day

The coal-mining waste tip that lay between

Bargoed Bargoed ( cy, Bargod) is a town and community in the Rhymney Valley, Wales, one of the South Wales Valleys. It lies on the Rhymney River in the county borough of Caerphilly. It straddles the ancient boundary of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, wit ...

and Aberbargoed once towered to a height of 400 feet in the 1970s. The local school had a Plant a tree in '73 campaign in an attempt to make it more pleasurable on the eye. The tip has now been levelled and the area has been reclaimed with walkways. The colliery has gone and is now home to an ambulance station and other small industries. There are also developments with a new retail outlet in the area where the tip once stood. The large tip at Bedwellty is still there, but has been grassed over and now looks much like the surrounding countryside. Aberbargoed now has an extensive area of grasslands that are protected due to the finding of the rare

marsh fritillary The marsh fritillary (''Euphydryas aurinia'') is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. Commonly distributed in the Palearctic region, the marsh fritillary's common name derives from one of its several habitats, marshland. The prolonged larval s ...

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprise ...

, ''Euphydryas aurinia'' in the

marsh A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found a ...

y area north of where Bedwellty School once stood. Recently the

A469 The A469 is a road in south Wales. It links Cardiff and Caerphilly with Rhymney and the Heads of the Valleys Road (A465). See also * Transport in Cardiff * Transport in Wales Transport in Wales is heavily influenced by the cou ...

Bargoed bypass was constructed through the park.

Notable people

:' * Sir Harold Josiah Finch, politician *

Geoff Eales Geoff Eales (born 13 March 1951) is a Welsh jazz pianist, improviser and composer. Music education Eales was born in Aberbargoed, Wales. When he was eight years old, he learned 12-bar blues from his father, a pianist in a local dance band. In sch ...

, jazz pianist and composer, was born in Aberbargoed *

Luke Evans Luke George Evans (born 15 April 1979) is a Welsh actor and singer. He began his career on the stage, performing in many of London's West End productions such as ''Rent'', ''Miss Saigon'', and '' Piaf'' before making his film breakthrough in ...

, actor and singer * Listed on the War Memorial in the middle of the village is the name of

Glyndwr Michael Major William Martin was a persona invented by British Military Intelligence for Operation Mincemeat, the Second World War deception plan that lured German forces to Greece prior to the Allied invasion of Sicily. Also known as "the man who neve ...

. His body, given the fictional name of "Major William Martin", was used in "

Operation Mincemeat Operation Mincemeat was a successful British deception operation of the Second World War to disguise the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily. Two members of British intelligence obtained the body of Glyndwr Michael, a tramp who died from eating ...

", a deception operation by

British intelligence agencies The Government of the United Kingdom maintains intelligence agencies within three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence. These agencies are responsible for collecting and analysing foreign and do ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

to disguise the 1943

Allied invasion of Sicily The Allied invasion of Sicily, also known as Operation Husky, was a major campaign of World War II in which the Allied forces invaded the island of Sicily in July 1943 and took it from the Axis powers ( Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany). It b ...

References

Bibliography

External links

Aberbargoed Electoral Ward Web PageNHS Wales's Aberbargoed Hospital Web PageWeb Page of Aberbargoed Grasslands Conservation AreaWelsh Coal Mines - all the pits, all the histories
{{authority control Towns in Caerphilly County Borough