Blaenrhondda is a village in the

county borough County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control, similar to the unitary authorities created since the 1990s. An equivalent te ...

Rhondda Cynon Taf Rhondda Cynon Taf (; RCT; also spelt as Rhondda Cynon Taff) is a county borough in the south-east of Wales. It consists of five valleys: the Rhondda Fawr, Rhondda Fach, Cynon, Taff (Welsh: ''Taf'') and Ely valleys, plus a number of towns and vill ...

, Wales, lying at the head the

Rhondda Rhondda , or the Rhondda Valley ( cy, Cwm Rhondda ), is a former coal mining, coalmining area in South Wales, historically in the county of Glamorgan. It takes its name from the River Rhondda, and embraces two valleys – the larger Rhondda Fa ...

Fawr valley. Blaenrhondda is a village and is part of the community of

Treherbert Treherbert () is a village and community situated at the head of the Rhondda Fawr valley in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. Historically part of Glamorgan, Treherbert is a former industrial coal mining village which was at its ec ...

History

The earliest evidence of people inhabiting the area are the remains of an

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...

settlement of several roundhouses grouped together in an obvious community, known as Hen Dre'r Mynydd. The dry wall layout of the ruinous site has led archaeologists to believe that the people who lived in the area were early farmers. It has been identified as the largest undefended Iron Age settlement in south east

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 ...

. Before the industrialisation of the Rhondda Valleys in the late 19th century, Blaenrhondda was an agricultural area and sparsely populated. With the coming of the

coal industry 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 dead ...

two mines were sunk in the locality. The first was the North Dunraven, also known as the Blaenrhondda, sunk in 1859, followed by Fernhill Colliery around

1871 Events January–March * January 3 – Franco-Prussian War – Battle of Bapaume: Prussians win a strategic victory. * January 18 – Proclamation of the German Empire: The member states of the North German Confederation and the sout ...

. The Dunraven closed in the 1920s but the Fernhill was still operating as late as 1978. In an attempt to break the monopoly of the

Taff Vale Railway The Taff Vale Railway (TVR) was a standard gauge railway in South Wales, built by the Taff Vale Railway Company to serve the iron and coal industries around Merthyr Tydfil and to connect them with docks in Cardiff. It was opened in stag ...

and the Cardiff docks, the

Rhondda Tunnel The Rhondda Tunnel is an abandoned railway tunnel that runs between the Rhondda and the Afan Valleys in South Wales. It is long, making it the third longest railway tunnel in Wales, and the seventeenth longest in the United Kingdom. The tunn ...

was constructed through Mynydd Blaengwynfy to link up with the

Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway The Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway was a Welsh railway company formed to connect the upper end of the Rhondda Fawr with Swansea, with the chief objective of transporting coal and other minerals to Swansea docks. It was incorporated in 1882, but ...

to supply coal to the Swansea Docks for export. The resulting tunnel, at a length of 3,300 yards was the longest rail tunnel in Wales and the seventh longest in Britain. Due to an issue with the weight the engines could pull, the rail link was never the success it was hoped to be, though it did prove popular with day-trippers from the Rhondda, visiting

Swansea Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of 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 C ...

and the

Gower Gower ( cy, Gŵyr) or the Gower Peninsula () in southwest Wales, projects towards the Bristol Channel. It is the most westerly part of the historic county of Glamorgan. In 1956, the majority of Gower became the first area in the United Kingdom ...

. The station was closed in 1970. In the hills above Blaenrhondda lies Blaenrhondda Road Cutting, a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

. It was given this status for its rock exposures showing sediments that formed on the flood plain of a river delta during the Carboniferous period, approximately 310 million years ago.

External links

Rhondda Cynon Taf Library Services

Celtic Heritage
BBC Wales

References

{{authority control Rhondda Valley Villages in Rhondda Cynon Taf