Rhigos () is a village and

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

Rhondda Cynon Taf Rhondda Cynon Taf (; RCT; also spelt as Rhondda Cynon Taff) is a Principal areas of Wales, county borough in the South East Wales, south-east of Wales. It consists of five valleys: the Rhondda Fawr, Rhondda Fach, Cynon, Taff () and Ely valleys, ...

, Wales. The village is located on the saddle of higher ground between the

Vale of Neath The Vale of Neath (or Neath Valley, Welsh: ''Cwm Nedd''), one of the South Wales Valleys, encompasses the upper reaches of the River Neath in southwest Wales. In addition to the River Neath, it is traversed by the Neath Canal and the A465 du ...

and the

Cynon Valley Cynon Valley () is a former coal mining valley in Wales. It lies between Rhondda and the Merthyr Valley and takes its name from the River Cynon. Aberdare is located in the north of the valley and Mountain Ash in the south. From 1974 to 19 ...

. It was part of Neath Rural District, in the county of

Glamorgan Glamorgan (), or sometimes Glamorganshire ( or ), was Historic counties of Wales, one of the thirteen counties of Wales that existed from 1536 until their abolishment in 1974. It is located in the South Wales, south of Wales. Originally an ea ...

, until 1974. The village then came under the jurisdiction of

Borough, which subsequently became

in 1996. It lies just off the Aberdare road that was the main link between

Aberdare Aberdare ( ; ) is a town in the Cynon Valley area of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales, at the confluence of the Rivers Dare (Dâr) and River Cynon, Cynon. Aberdare has a population of 39,550 (mid-2017 estimate). Aberdare is south-west of Merthyr Tydf ...

and Glynneath, before the

A465 road The A465 is a Trunk roads in Wales, trunk road that runs from Bromyard in Herefordshire, England to Llandarcy near Swansea in south Wales. The western half in Wales is known officially as the Neath to Abergavenny Trunk Road, but the section fro ...

was extended in the 1960s. The hamlets of Cefn Rhigos and Cwm-Hwnt lie to the west of the main village. The population of the

in the 2011 census was 894. The postal the town is Aberdare, although it is some from Aberdare town centre, and from Glynneath. It was noted as a township in the parish of Ystradyfodwg in several historical references and people moved to this rural area to work in local industries. Today the village is a quiet place to live with views of the

Brecon Beacons National Park Brecon Beacons National Park, officially named Bannau Brycheiniog National Park (), is a National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in Wales. It is named after the Brecon Beacons (), the mountain range at its centre. The national park ...

to the north and is within walking distance of Waterfall Country.

Etymology

The name Rhigos is an erroneous standardisation of the local dialect form of Rucos or Ricos (same pronunciation). A rule of thumb for writing Welsh place names is that they should be spelled according to the standard language and not the local dialect form (though there are many instances of names showing local traits) rather than a standard version -

Machynlleth Machynlleth () is a market town, community and electoral ward in Powys, Wales and within the historic boundaries of Montgomeryshire. It is in the Dyfi Valley at the intersection of the A487 and the A489 roads. At the 2001 Census it had a po ...

for Machynllaith, Caerdydd for Caerdyf etc. An initial 'c' in a final syllable in the Gwentian -

Gwenhwyseg or (also called " Gwentian" in English) is a Welsh dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well ...

dialect is often a devoiced form of 'g', and such is the case here. An initial 'r' is generally a deaspirated 'rh' in the dialect, but this is not the case here. Since in South Wales 'u' and 'i' no longer represent different vowel sounds (though in North Wales these spellings DO show different vowels) in spelling 'i' might be used instead of the historically correct spelling with 'u'. In this way 'Rhigos' has come about, though in fact it is, from its earlier spellings, quite evidently from 'grugos' (small clumps of heather - 'grug' is heather and '-os' is a diminutive suffix found in place names after words denoting vegetation, and in the modern language it is seen in 'plantos' = little children). The 'correct' form of the name is 'Y Rugos', a name found in other parts of Wales (also as Y Grugos).

Geography and natural history

"The south Wales Valleys support a treasure trove of biodiversity. Like all good treasure troves it had been lost and long forgotten and has only now been re-found, and like some giant archaeological dig, one discovery has led to another; one find has spurred on the finding of the next." Rhigos lies at the apex of the

and the

. Craig y Llyn, the mountain summit above it, is the highest peak in the traditional county of Glamorgan. A glacial cirque excavated into the

Pennant Sandstone The Pennant Measures is the traditional name for a sequence of sedimentary rocks of the South Wales Coalfield. They were also referred to as the Upper Coal Measures and assigned to the Westphalian 'C' and Westphalian 'D' stages of the Carbonifer ...

scarp of Craig y Llyn holds the

glacial lake A glacial lake is a body of water with origins from glacier activity. They are formed when a glacier erodes the land and then melts, filling the depression created by the glacier. Formation Near the end of the last glacial period, roughly 10,0 ...

of Llyn Fawr. The glaciers sculpted and over-deepened the valleys into characteristic U-shaped profiles. All the deposits of the Welsh ice were locally derived. Certain parts of the local landscape surrounding Rhigos have been designated as

Sites 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 ...

including the wooded gorges of Waterfall Country, Cwm Cadlan and nearby Blaencynon SAC. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee which advises the government and devolved administrations on UK-wide and international nature conservation, states that the damp grassland and heath of the Blaencynon site has been noted as an area that supports the

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 st ...

butterfly. This butterfly is threatened not only in the UK, but across Europe. which makes this area of importance in an international conservation effort. The Rhigos Mountain since Mid-August 2022 has been closed until further notice, due to a significant mountain fire, which caused the metal wiring that secures the boulders down, to melt away, posing a significant threat to the A4061 Rhigos Road, which plays a big part in connecting communities such as Treherbert & Hirwaun. Specialist access rope contractors are currently on site investigating the mountainside, and a date for reopening the road has not, and will not be announced for some time as of yet.

History

An important archaeological find was made at Llyn Fawr between 1909 and 1913 which was called 'The Llyn Fawr Hoard'. According to the National Museum of Wales, the Llyn Fawr hoard is extremely important because it illustrates the cross over between the

Bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

and

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

s. It is unusual because of the mixed styles of objects that suggest a wide range of origins. Indeed, on the British scale the name Llyn Fawr is given to the period of time dating from 750-600BC. These precious and unique items can be found in the National Museum and Galleries of Wales. The first raising of the red flag took place on nearby Hirwaun Common which subsequently led to the Merthyr Uprising in 1831.

Industrial history

Originally farmland until the late 1700s, the village developed in the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

through the mineral industry, extracting coal, iron ore and limestone. What is believed to be the first coke fired furnace was built on nearby land by John Mayberry of Brecon in 1757. It came into the possession of the Crawshay family in 1819, which provided much employment until the early 1830s. Francis Crawshay famously built a folly on nearby land and was apparently the only member of the family to speak Welsh. The site was then taken over by the Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Company which ran until the 1930s. British Rhondda Colliery, later called "The Pandy" and finally Rhigos Colliery was opened during the 1920s. This was a

drift mine Drift mining is either the mining of an ore deposit by Underground mining (hard rock), underground methods, or the working of coal seams accessed by adits driven into the surface outcrop of the coal bed. A drift mine is an underground mine in whic ...

, and it closed in 1965. Coal was extracted from land near Rhigos in 1864 from a drift mine called Tower Graig. This mine is noted to have been discontinued, but there are records that 420 men were employed by The Marquess of Bute to extract coal from Tower Colliery around the 1890s. The

Tower Colliery Tower Colliery ( Welsh: Glofa'r Tŵr) was the oldest continuously working deep- coal mine in the United Kingdom, and possibly the world, until its closure in 2008. It was the last mine of its kind to remain in the South Wales Valleys. It was loc ...

and was famously the subject of a worker's buy-out closed in 2008 and its closure saw the last of the deep mines in Wales come to an end. However, Tyrone O'Sullivan who was part of the worker buy out, spoke about the possibility of the land being regenerated in the future. Indeed, in 2019 RCT Council announced that planning had been unanimously granted for Zipline Cymru to construct of a new line at the Tower site which will be the focus for the development of tourism in the area.

Hirwaun Industrial Estate

During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, those not within the colliery industry, and hence in reserved employment, could find similar work at ROF Hirwaun, which was actually sited within Rhigos parish where the present day Industrial Estate is located. Developed by Royal Ordnance Factory and the Ministry of War from 1942 as an offshoot of ROF Newport, it was an engineering ROF producing .303

cartridge case A cartridge, also known as a round, is a type of pre-assembled firearm ammunition packaging a projectile (bullet, shot, or slug), a propellant substance ( smokeless powder, black powder substitute, or black powder) and an ignition device ( pr ...

s for

Lee–Enfield The Lee–Enfield is a bolt-action, magazine-fed repeating rifle that served as the main firearm of the military forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth during the first half of the 20th century, and was the standard service rifle of th ...

rifles, and 9mm

s, which were then shipped to be filled at a Filling ROF. Having built three new roads and associated bungalows to house the workers, all raw materials were shipped in via the former Vale of Neath Railway by the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a History of rail transport in Great Britain, British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, ...

, using the sidings of the former Tir Herbert

brickworks A brickworks, also known as a brick factory, is a factory for the manufacturing of bricks, from clay or shale. Usually a brickworks is located on a clay bedrock (the most common material from which bricks are made), often with a clay pit, quar ...

. Day-workers would alight at Rhigos railway station, beyond which were built additional sidings to house the

railway carriage A railroad car, railcar ( American and Canadian English), railway wagon, railway carriage, railway truck, railwagon, railcarriage or railtruck (British English and UIC), also called a train car, train wagon, train carriage or train truc ...

s that were shipping workers to the site from all over the South Wales valleys. The site of the ROF was discovered by the German military, who ordered a single air raid by the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

Luftwaffe The Luftwaffe () was the aerial warfare, aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. German Empire, Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial German Army, Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Ge ...

in 1943. At the end of the war, the site was abandoned, and the factory was only demolished in the late 1960s. A range of other businesses then took over the Industrial Estate and further details about these can be found in the W.W Price Collection at Aberdare Library.

Sport and leisure

One of the village's social hubs is the Rhigos RFC club house. The

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

team play in Division Five, South Central of the Welsh Rugby pyramid. Rhigos Sports Hall is a volunteer-run facility, and is located adjacent to the rugby club. It provides a range of indoor sporting facilities to Rhigos and the surrounding areas. The Rhigos WCKA Kickboxing Club meet in the hall each week and is part of the Welsh Contact Karate Association. Members of the club were part of the Wales team who attended the World Kickboxing Championships 2018 in Greece. The Vale of Neath Gliding Club operates from a grass airfield for

gliding Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sports, air sport in which pilots fly glider aircraft, unpowered aircraft known as Glider (sailplane), gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmospher ...

close to the village. where tuition can be given under the guidance of British Gliding Association qualified instructors. The Rhigos mountain is also a popular spot for paragliders due to the excellent thermal conditions and views. Cyclists are also often found in and around Rhigos. The route up the mountain forms part of competitions and meets for clubs from all over the UK, such as the Junior Tour of Wales and is considered to be a scenic but particularly challenging climb. It has been quoted as being one of the most beautiful and challenging ascents in the whole of Wales.

Transport

In 1850 the Vale of Neath Railway opened its line between and via , completing its mainline to from Hirwaun in 1853. Rhigos Halt consisted of two platforms and was sited at the north end of the 520 yard long Pencaedrain Tunnel. Brown's engineering sidings were additionally built to house permanent way vehicles that were maintaining the

railway tracks Railway track ( and UIC terminology) or railroad track (), also known as permanent way () or "P way" ( and Indian English), is the structure on a railway or railroad consisting of the rails, fasteners, sleepers (railroad ties in American E ...

. The climb from to Rhigos involved the steep Glynneath embankment, which required all north-bound trains to take on a banker locomotive at Glynneath station, which was released at Rhigos. After the railway was closed under the

Beeching Axe The Beeching cuts, also colloquially referred to as the Beeching Axe, were a major series of route closures and service changes made as part of the restructuring of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain in the 1960s. They are named ...

, the council took the opportunity to provide a better road link between Hirwaun and Glynneath, and so bypassed the old Aberdare road by building an extension to

which used most of the trackbed of the abandoned railway. The road has now been identified by the government as being in need of improvement due to restricted traffic flow and poor visibility. The current plans in place are stated by the government to be completed by 2024. 'The Parrish Road' was another access to the village which was closed when Celtic Energy opened a controversial opencast mine between Rhigos and Cwmgwrach in 1997. The promise was made to reinstate the road after the mine closed, and talks have been held between residents, Celtic Energy and Neath Port Talbot County Council during 2020.

Notable people

Rhigos has produced some international rugby players, most notably Dai Morris, who played for Rhigos RFC and Neath RFC. He won 34 caps for

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

as a flanker during the "Second Golden Era" of Welsh rugby in the 1970s, and dual rugby union/rugby league international Glyn Shaw.

Present day

Rhigos Primary School, originally built in the Victorian style in 1876 and located on Heol y Graig, closed on 2024. The majority of pupils from the school subsequently attended Aberdare Community School or St John the Baptist School, Aberdare. Welsh medium education is available for pupils at Ysgol Gynradd Penderyn situated in the nearby village of Pontpren, Penderyn and then at secondary level at Ysgol Gyfun Rhydywaun. The nearest Catholic primary school is St Margaret's Primary. Prior to the building of Rhigos Primary School, classes were held in rooms provided by R Crawshay Esq, first mentioned in the journals of William Roberts (Nefydd) in 1856. He states how the school was funded by the colliers and miners of Rhigos, who each contributed 1d of each pound of their wages to support a master, whose salary was £40. There is a Voluntary Society in Rhigos who organise a carnival for the village in the summer. They also take local children to see the pantomime in Aberdare Coliseum at Christmas and ensure that 'Santa' visits each street handing out goodies for little ones. The village Community Centre is located on Heol Esgyn. It received funding for renovations in 2013. The Rhigos Community Council meets there each month, and it is also used by senior citizens groups, youth clubs and for council surgeries. Rhigos is represented in RCT council by Cllr Graham Thomas and in The Senedd by Vicki Howells AS. The New Inn is situated on Smiths Avenue. The Plough pub at Cwm-Hwnt is no longer in use.

References

External links

Rhigos Community Council

(archived) {{Authority control Villages in Rhondda Cynon Taf Communities in Rhondda Cynon Taf