Caerau is a former mining village in town and community of

Maesteg Maesteg is a town and community (Wales), community in Bridgend County Borough, Wales. Maesteg lies at the northernmost end of the Llynfi Valley, close to the border with Neath Port Talbot. In 2011, Maesteg had a population of 20,612. The English ...

Bridgend County Borough Bridgend County Borough ( cy, Bwrdeistref Sirol Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr) is a county borough in the south-east of Wales. The county borough has a total population of 139,200 people, and contains the town of Bridgend, after which it is named. I ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

, located approximately 2 miles north of the centre of Maesteg in the

Llynfi Valley The River Llynfi, cy, Afon Llynfi, is one of three main tributaries of the River Ogmore ( cy, Afon Ogwr). It runs for around 10 miles from its source north of Maesteg and flows generally southwards through the Llynfi Valley to the confluence ...

. Caerau, surrounded by mountainous terrain and forestry, is one of the border points between

and

Neath Port Talbot Neath Port Talbot ( cy, Castell-nedd Port Talbot) is a county borough in the south-west of Wales. Its principal towns are Neath, Port Talbot, Briton Ferry and Pontardawe. The county borough borders Bridgend County Borough and Rhondda Cynon Taf ...

County Borough, bordered to the north by

Croeserw Croeserw is a village of approximately 1,380 inhabitants in Gwynfi and Croeserw, Neath Port Talbot county borough, Wales. Location It stands on a hillside in the Afan Valley (also known as Avon) at between 196 and 299 metres above sea leve ...

and

Cymmer, Neath Port Talbot Cymmer ( cy, Cymer) is a small village in the community of Clymer and Glyncorrwg, in Neath Port Talbot in Wales, set on a hillside in the Afan Valley near the confluence of the River Afan and the River Corrwg. In 2001, Cymmer had a population ...

. Caerau, borders Dyffryn and Spelter to the south in Nantyffyllon, Maesteg.

Governance

For elections to Bridgend County Borough Council, Caerau is part of the electoral ward of Caerau, which also includes the Nantyffyllon area of Maesteg. The ward elects two county borough councillors.

History

Caerau was originally a village with very little significance and population up until the late 1800s when the extensive mineral extraction industry gained traction. The North's Navigation Collieries company established Caerau Colliery in 1889, and following an insatiable demand for labour, the village population increased dramatically. Many of the early houses and buildings in Caerau were built by North's Navigation company, and were mostly built with locally quarried stone. This gives the village a characteristic style of

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

with its native

Carboniferous limestone Carboniferous Limestone is a collective term for the succession of limestones occurring widely throughout Great Britain and Ireland that were deposited during the Dinantian epoch (geology), Epoch of the Carboniferous period (geology), Period. T ...

masonry in its buildings. This style can often be seen combined with crenellated door and window surrounds made of locally produced red or blue brick. Caerau had a significant role in the

war effort In politics and military planning, a war effort is a coordinated mobilization of society's resources—both industrial and human—towards the support of a military force. Depending on the militarization of the culture, the relative si ...

, both through its continuous production of coal and also its acceptance of large amounts of children evacuees during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Caerau Colliery

The village grew rapidly after the opening of Caerau Colliery in 1889 by North's Navigation Collieries. In brief, the colliery consisted of three shafts (North, South and No. 3 Pits) and employed 2,400 men at its peak in the early 1920s. The mine closed in 1977. The Inspector of Mines list, 1896, shows there were 533 men employed in Caerau "South Pit" producing

steam coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

. Further development saw the sinking of No.3 House Coal Pit in 1903. In 1908, there were 1,170 men employed in the two Steam Coal Pits and 57 in the House Coal Pit. This colliery held the record output for the South Wales area in 1913. By 1918, the workforce had risen to 1,839. From a list drafted in 1923, there were 2,040 employed at the Steam Coal Pits, producing coal and ironstone from the Six Feet, Seven Feet and Upper and Lower New Seams. The House Coal Pit employed 340 men, producing from the Two and a Half Feet Seam. The House Coal Pit closed in 1925. Three men were killed in an underground accident at Caerau Colliery in 1931. By the end of the war in 1945, there were 568 men still in employment. Production began to slow from 1977. During its final two years, coal production concentrated on the Bute Seam. Caerau Colliery eventually closed permanently in 1979, five years before Margaret Thatcher's announcement of coal pit closures in 1984 which led to the miners' strike of 1984 and 1985. Most of the men were transferred to nearby Coegnant and St. John's Colliery.

Caerau Colliery legacy

Even after the mining industry had ceased in 1979, the village still bore the scars of its extensive mining history. Enormous landforms created by the dumping of

tailings In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overli ...

from the colliery (known locally as “coal tips” or simply “tips”) still remained. These landforms were levelled and

landscaped Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...

during the 1980s, now very little traces remain of the mining industry in the village. More recently, plans to produce environmentally friendly geothermically heated water at around 20.6 degrees Celsius for use in heating homes. The concept is utilising the naturally heated water from the flooded former

mine workings Mining is the Extractivism, extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein (geology), vein, coal mining, seam, quartz reef mining, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of ...

of Caerau Colliery through a

heat exchanger A heat exchanger is a system used to transfer heat between a source and a working fluid. Heat exchangers are used in both cooling and heating processes. The fluids may be separated by a solid wall to prevent mixing or they may be in direct conta ...

to provide heat to homes. The project is projected to cost £9.4M.

Population

The ward population taken at the 2011 census was 6,995.

Amenities and community projects

Caerau is home to a range of community projects. For example, Caerau Market Garden which is managed by Caerau Community Growers, and Noddfa Community Project at Noddfa Community Centre.

Religion

Due to the predominantly practising Christian population at the turn of the 19th century, there were many

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

es built. However, due to the sharp decline in the practising Christians in the village many of these buildings are now derelict or demolished. St. Cynfelin church is still open and regularly attended. Noddfa Chapel is a former church that is now used as a

Library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

and for youth activities. The village also has a public park that includes a bowls green, which is the home of the village's bowls team.

Recreation and facilities

Caerau Road contains most of the village's

retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and ...

facilities. Formerly home to a diverse number of shops and establishments, the area is now mainly populated by convenience stores and take-away meal outlets. The village once contained its own cinemas however these facilities no longer remain. The village

cenotaph A cenotaph is an empty tomb or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although the vast majority of cenot ...

now stands in the place of the Coliseum, a once popular cinema which was demolished in the 1970s. There are public allotment facilities near North Street called Caerau Market Garden, which is popular among residents for growing vegetables. There is also an organisation called Men's Shed, which provides affordable meals and groceries to residents. Caerau lacks a miners’ institute building. This is due to an arson attack on the former premises which was situated on what is now a grassy area between Wesley street and Library Road.

Hotels and public houses

Due to its significance as a mining village, many

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

s were built to accommodate the number of visitors to the village as a result. None of the premises now accept guests, but many still remain open as

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and wa ...

s. The Station (1905), Navi (formerly “Navigation” 1882) and Blaenllynfi (1892) are surviving examples of the village's hotels, however the Blaencaerau Hotel (renamed “The Monkey”) was destroyed by arson in 1990 and the Dyffryn Hotel is disused. Alongside these, the Llynfi Coach House (formerly “Legion Club”), Riverboat and Imperial Club are popular venues in Caerau.

Education

English-medium primary education is provided in the village at Caerau Primary School. The school is a modern design that was constructed with environmentally friendly materials. It replaced the old 19th century school building that was destroyed by arson. Secondary and further education is provided outside of the village in Ysgol Maesteg School.

Transport

The village is located on the

A4063 road The A4063 links the town of Bridgend with Cymer in Wales. Settlements on route Settlements served by the route include: *Bridgend *Wild Mill * Pen-y-fai * Sarn *Aberkenfig *Tondu * Coytrahen *Llangynwyd * Cwmfelin *Maesteg * Nantyffyllon * Dyf ...

between

and

. There are

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

services operating routes through the village as well as

taxi A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choic ...

firms operating from the village. Parking is free throughout the village. Caerau train station and the associated railway routes were made defunct during the

Beeching Report Beeching is an English surname. Either a derivative of the old English ''bece'', ''bæce'' "stream", hence "dweller by the stream" or of the old English ''bece'' "beech-tree" hence "dweller by the beech tree".''Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames' ...

cutback of rail services in the 1960s. The nearest railway station to the village is Maesteg.

Sport

Caerau FC, the local football club, play in the 1st division of the

South Wales Amateur League The South Wales Amateur League was a former football league in South Wales. The league consisted of two divisions, named Divisions One and Two. Division One was a feeder to the Welsh Football League Division Three, and sat at level 5 of the Wel ...

(as of 2008–09). They play at the Athletic Ground at Humphreys Terrace, which is a south of the village centre. Caerau also hosts a national-standard BMX track, home to the Llynfi BMX Racing Club, behind The Duffryn Pub on Coegnant Road. There is also a Clubhouse for the Bowling Green at Caerau Park. Caerau is also the training ground for Llynfi Valley Panthers Netball Club, who train in Caerau Primary School.

References

External links

Caerau First - Community Website
{{coord, 51.635, -3.656, display=title, region:GB_scale:5000 Villages in Bridgend County Borough Maesteg