The Rhymney Valley is a valley

Valley

In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys...

 encompassing the villages of Abertysswg

Abertysswg

Abertysswg is a village in the county borough of Caerphilly, Wales.-Location:Situated in the South Wales Valleys, Abertysswg is a small village located to the east of Pontlottyn and south-east of Rhymney. The nearest major town is Merthyr Tydfil. The Rhymney River lies just west of the village...

, Fochriw

Fochriw

Fochriw is a village located in Caerphilly County Borough, Wales. It was well known for its neighbouring collieries, which employed nearly the entire local population in the early 20th century. It lies within the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan...

, Pontlottyn

Pontlottyn

Pontlottyn |Caerphilly]], within the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan, Wales, United Kingdom. It is sited just to the south of Rhymney, and to the west of the Rhymney River.-History:...

, Tirphil, New Tredegar

New Tredegar

New Tredegar is a former coal mining community in the Rhymney Valley, Caerphilly county borough, Wales , within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire....

, Aberbargoed

Aberbargoed

Aberbargoed is a small town in the Welsh county borough of Caerphilly, within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire, south Wales. Aberbargoed once contained the largest ever colliery waste tip in Europe, although this has now been reclaimed and turned into a country park.- Mining :Coal mining...

, Rhymney

Rhymney

Rhymney is a town and a community located in the county borough of Caerphilly in south-east Wales, within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire. Along with the villages of Pontlottyn, Fochriw, Abertysswg, Deri and New Tredegar, Rhymney is designated as the 'Upper Rhymney Valley' by the local...

, and Ystrad Mynach

Ystrad Mynach

Ystrad Mynach is a town in the County Borough of Caerphilly, previously within the ancient traditional county of Glamorgan, Wales, and is 5 miles north of Caerphilly town. It has a population of around 13,500 and stands in the Rhymney Valley . Before the Industrial Revolution and the coming of coal...

, and the towns of Bargoed

Bargoed

Bargoed is a town in the Rhymney Valley, Wales, one of the South Wales Valleys. It lies on the Rhymney River in the county borough of Caerphilly and straddles ancient boundary of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire. 'Greater Bargoed', as defined by the local authority Caerphilly County Borough Council,...

 and Caerphilly

Caerphilly

Caerphilly is a town in the county borough of Caerphilly, south Wales, located at the southern end of the Rhymney Valley, with a population of approximately 31,000. It is a commuter town of Cardiff and Newport, which are located some 7.5 miles and 12 miles away, respectively...

, in south-east 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...

, formerly famous for its 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,...

 and iron

Iron

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

 industries.

Geography

Created as a glacial valley, now the Rhymney River

Rhymney River

The Rhymney River is a river in the Rhymney Valley, south-east Wales, flowing through Cardiff into the Severn estuary.The river forms the boundary between the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire.-Path of the river:...

 flows largely south to Rumney

Rumney, Cardiff

Rumney is a district in the east of the city of Cardiff, Wales. It lies east of the Rhymney River, and is historically part of Monmouthshire...

, a district of Cardiff

Cardiff

Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...

. The river is the ancient boundary between 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...

 and Monmouthshire

Monmouthshire (historic)

Monmouthshire , also known as the County of Monmouth , is one of thirteen ancient counties of Wales and a former administrative county....

.

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

History

This valley is one of the South Wales Valleys

South Wales Valleys

The South Wales Valleys are a number of industrialised valleys in South Wales, stretching from eastern Carmarthenshire in the west to western Monmouthshire in the east and from the Heads of the Valleys in the north to the lower-lying, pastoral country of the Vale of Glamorgan and the coastal plain...

, and its history largely follows theirs: sparsely populated until the nineteenth century; industrialised for iron

Iron

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

, steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

 and coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

; industrial decline in the 1980s and 1990s. The Rhymney Valley produced a miner poet, Idris Davies

Idris Davies

Idris Davies was a Welsh poet. He was born in Rhymney, near Caerphilly in South Wales, the Welsh-speaking son of colliery chief winderman Evan Davies and his wife Elizabeth Ann. Davies became a poet, originally writing in Welsh, but later writing exclusively in English...

 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

Caerphilly

Caerphilly is a town in the county borough of Caerphilly, south Wales, located at the southern end of the Rhymney Valley, with a population of approximately 31,000. It is a commuter town of Cardiff and Newport, which are located some 7.5 miles and 12 miles away, respectively...

—increasing access to and from Cardiff and the M4 motorway

M4 motorway

The M4 motorway links London with South Wales. It is part of the unsigned European route E30. Other major places directly accessible from M4 junctions are Reading, Swindon, Bristol, Newport, Cardiff and Swansea...

, and increasing the numbers of commuters from the valley to Cardiff

Cardiff

Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...

. The area is now one of the most populous in Wales.

The Rhymney Valley hosted the National Eisteddfod in 1990.

Transport

• The Rhymney Valley railway
  Rhymney Line
  The Rhymney Line is a commuter rail line running from Central Cardiff through the Rhymney valley via Heath and Llanishen in the north of the city, to Caerphilly, Bargoed and Rhymney.-History:...
  
  runs through the valley.