This village of Blaencwm is in a small valley on the eastern side of the Rhondda Fawr, not far from its head. Until the arrival of coal mining in the mid 19th Century this was a sparsely populated place. The Taff Vale railway opened up the area to mining and the Dunraven Colliery, and the later, more successful Glen Rhondda Colliery, exploited the seams here until closure by the NCB in 1966.
Newport and Valleys pictures