Rhymney Valley

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

Groesfaen, Deri, Pentwyn and Fochriw are located in the Darran Valley and not the Rhymney Valley. This valley joins the Rhymney Valley at Bargoed.

The valley can be divided into upper, middle, and lower parts of the valley. The upper part of the valley encompasses the narrower valley between the villages of Rhymney and Brithdir; the middle part of the valley is a part of a depression in the surrounding valleys; and the lower part of the valley is in the southern most parts of the South Wales Valleys, ending around the village of Machen before the flat plain around Cardiff and Newport.

The area around the middle of the Rhymney Valley as well as the Sirhowy Valley, spanning the area between the more prominent mountains around Newbridge, Brithdir, Treharris, and Caerphilly, is a geographical depression. This area has consequently developed a near continuous urban area between the towns of Newbridge, Blackwood, Bargoed, and Ystrad Mynach.

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.

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.

Gorsedd Stones

The Rhymney Valley Gorsedd Stones are located above Bryn Bach Park, Tredegar on the site of the 1990 National Eisteddfod of Wales hosted by the Rhymney Valley.^[2]

The stone circle consists of 12 standing stones arranged in a circle approximately 25m across with the tallest being 1.8m high a thirteenth stone marks the entrance to the circle. In the center is a flat stone known as the Logan stone. Stone circles of this type were erected on all sites of the National Eisteddfod until 2005 when as a cost-cutting exercise fibre-glass stone circles were used for the first time. 51°46'35.6"N 3°16'46.1"W

There is a legend to explain how coal first came to be found in the Rhymney Valley. It is said that the local fairies were being pestered by a giant. They asked help from an owl who slew the giant. As the fairies burnt the giant's body, the ground burned away, exposing the coal.^[3]

• The Rhymney Valley railway runs through the valley.
• The major roads that go through the valley are the A469, A468, A4049, and A472.

Davies, John; Jenkins, Nigel; Menna, Baines; Lynch, Peredur I., eds. (2008). The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. ISBN 978-0-7083-1953-6.

• Evans, Marion, (1994), A Portrait of Rhymney with cameos of Pontlottyn, Tafarnaubach, Princetown, Abertysswg and Fochriw, volume 1. ISBN 1-874538-40-9.
• 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 1-874538-41-7.
• 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.