Maerdy
Encyclopedia
Maerdy is a village and community in the county borough
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. They were abolished by the Local Government Act 1972 in England and Wales, but continue in use for lieutenancy and shrievalty in...

 of Rhondda Cynon Taf, and within the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan
Glamorgan
Glamorgan or Glamorganshire is one of the thirteen historic counties and a former administrative county of Wales. It was originally an early medieval kingdom of varying boundaries known as Glywysing until taken over by the Normans as a lordship. Glamorgan is latterly represented by the three...

, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, lying at the head of the Rhondda
Rhondda
Rhondda , or the Rhondda Valley , is a former coal mining valley in Wales, formerly a local government district, consisting of 16 communities built around the River Rhondda. The valley is made up of two valleys, the larger Rhondda Fawr valley and the smaller Rhondda Fach valley...

 Fach Valley.

History

"Maerdy" is a Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

 word meaning "house of the major", and may indicate a medieval origin. The "mayor" was the official also known as the reeve
Reeve (England)
Originally in Anglo-Saxon England the reeve was a senior official with local responsibilities under the Crown e.g. as the chief magistrate of a town or district...

, usually the most affluent farmer in the area.

The area grew from a farming community to town around the coal mining
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...

 industry and the development of Mardy Colliery
Mardy Colliery
Mardy Colliery was a coal mine located in the South Wales village of Maerdy , in the Rhondda Valley, located in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, and within the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan, Wales...

 in the late 19th century, but its last pit (Mardy Main) shut in 1990. Maerdy was not originally an area of industrial confrontation, with the Cambrian mines of Pentre
Pentre
Pentre is a village and community, near Treorchy in Rhondda valley, falling within the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. The village's name is taken from the Welsh word Pentref, which translates as homestead, though Pentre is named after a large farm that dominated the area before the...

 showing far more socialist ideals. This view would change by the mid to late 20th century when Maerdy became synonymous with working class syndicalism
Syndicalism
Syndicalism is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and an alternative to state socialism, which uses federations of collectivised trade unions or industrial unions...

 and solidarity. In the mid-twentieth century Maerdy was associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...

 and radical miners' leaders such as Arthur Horner
Arthur Horner (politician)
Arthur Lewis Horner was a Welsh trade union leader and communist politician. During his periods of office as President of the South Wales Miners Federation from 1936, and as General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers from 1946, he became one of the most prominent and influential...

 and was known as Little Moscow
Little Moscow
Little Moscow was a term used to describe towns and villages in capitalist societies whose population appeared to hold extreme left-wing political values or communist views...

. By the time of the Miners' strike
UK miners' strike (1984–1985)
The UK miners' strike was a major industrial action affecting the British coal industry. It was a defining moment in British industrial relations, and its defeat significantly weakened the British trades union movement...

 in the 1980s, Maerdy was the location of one of the last working mines in the south Wales valleys, and the pictures of the returning miners once the strike was resolved was one of the defining moments of late 20th century Welsh history.

Transport

Between 1849 and 1856, the Taff Vale Railway
Taff Vale Railway
The Taff Vale Railway is a railway in Glamorgan, South Wales, and is one of the oldest in Wales. It operated as an independent company from 1836 until 1922, when it became a constituent company of the Great Western Railway...

 opened the Maerdy Branch from , including a station at . Passenger services were withdrawn in 1964, and the line closed completely and was lifted from June 1986 after coal from Mardy Colliery was raised through Tower Colliery
Tower Colliery
Tower Colliery is the oldest continuously working deep-coal mine in the United Kingdom, and possibly the world, and the last mine of its kind to remain in the South Wales Valleys...

.

In 2005, RCT council constructed the A4223 Porth and Lower Rhondda Fach Relief Road (Porth Bypass) follows the old railway line through Ynyshir, past Wattstown and on to Pontygwaith
Pontygwaith, Rhondda
Pontygwaith is a small village located in the Rhondda Fach valley in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales.- History :...

. The northern section forms a branch to the Taff Trail
Taff Trail
The Taff Trail is a popular walking and cycle path that runs for between Cardiff Bay and Brecon in Wales. It is named so because it follows the course of the River Taff...

 cycleway.

Community Archives Wales

A group of interested residents takes part in the Maerdy Archive Group which is affiliated with the Community Archives Wales
Community Archives Wales
Community Archives Wales is a website of digital content created and maintained by a number of community heritage groups from across Wales...

scheme to teach local residents how to upload articles of their community's history. The group has a large collection of photographs and ephemera about the development and expansion of the Maerdy area.
In 2002 the village was designated as a Communities First Area and a Partnership formed.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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