Rhymney Valley

For the local government district, see Rhymney Valley (district).

The Rhymney Valley (Template:Lang-cy) is a valley encompassing the villages of Abertysswg, Fochriw, Pontlottyn, Tirphil, New Tredegar, Aber Bargoed, Rhymney, and Ystrad Mynach, and the towns of Bargoed and Caerphilly, in south-east Wales, formerly famous for its coal mining and iron industries.

Geography

Created as a glacial valley, now the Rhymney River flows largely south to Rumney, a district of Cardiff. The river is the ancient boundary between Glamorgan and Monmouthshire.

History

This valley is one of the South Wales Valleys, and its history largely follows theirs: sparsely populated until the nineteenth century; industrialised for iron, steel and coal; industrial decline in the 1980s and 1990s. The Rhymney Valley produced a miner poet, Idris Davies of Rhymney, famous for his poems associated with the locality and the struggles of its people, and prolific writer Marion Evans, a local historian who has produced five volumes of her series of A Portrait of Rhymney with cameos of Pontlottyn, Tafarnaubach, Princetown, Abertysswg and Fochriw together with The History of Andrew Buchan's Rhymney Brewery. Her other booklets and articles include The Story of our Village, Rhymney, Gelligaer Common, A Portrait of the Bent Iron, Clay Pipes and A Portrait of Idris Davies.

The 1990s brought improved road connections to the valley—a dual carriageway running north from Caerphilly—increasing access to and from Cardiff and the M4 motorway, and increasing the numbers of commuters from the valley to Cardiff. The area is now one of the most populous in Wales.

The Rhymney Valley hosted the National Eisteddfod in 1990.

Bibliography

Evans, Marion, (1994), A Portrait of Rhymney with cameos of Pontlottyn, Tafarnaubach, Princetown, Abertysswg and Fochriw, volume 1. ISBN 1 874538 409. Evans, Marion, (1995), A Portrait of Rhymney with cameos of Ponylottyn, Tafarnaubach, Princetown, Abertysswg and Fochriw, volume 2. ISBN 1 874538 70 0. Evans, Marion, (1996), A Portrait of Rhymney with cameos of Pontlottyn, Tafarnaubach, Princetown, Abertysswg and Fochriw, volume 3. ISBN 1 874538 417. Evans, Marion, (1998), A Portrait of Rhymney with cameos of Pontlottyn, Tafarnaubach, Princetown, Abertysswg and Fochriw, volume 4. ISBN 1 874538 02 6. Evans, Marion, (2009), A Portrait of Rhymney with cameos of Pontlottyn, Tafarnaubach, Princetown, Abertysswg and Fochriw, volume 5. ISBN 978-1-905967-20-9. Evans, Marion, (2007), The History of Andrew Buchan's Rhymney Brewery. ISBN 978-1-905967-07-0.

Transport

• The Rhymney Valley railway runs through the valley.