Rhydcymerau is a small village 8.5 kilometres to the south-east of

Llanybydder Llanybydder (, sometimes formerly spelt ''Llanybyther'') is a market town and community straddling the River Teifi in Carmarthenshire, West Wales. At the 2011 Census, the population of the community was 1638, an increase from 1423 at the 2001 ...

, around the side of Mynydd Llanybydder, in

Carmarthenshire Carmarthenshire ( cy, Sir Gaerfyrddin; or informally ') is a county in the south-west of Wales. The three largest towns are Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford. Carmarthen is the county town and administrative centre. The county is known as ...

, south-west

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

. Rhydcymerau is the birthplace of prominent Welsh writer and nationalist

David John Williams David John Williams (26 June 1885 – 4 January 1970) was one of the foremost Welsh-language writers of the twentieth century and a prominent Welsh nationalist. Life Williams was born at Pen-rhiw, a farmhouse near Llansawel, Carmarthenshire ...

, one of three saboteurs of the

Penyberth Penyberth was a farmhouse at Penrhos, on the Llŷn Peninsula near Pwllheli, Gwynedd, which had been the home to generations of patrons of poets, and also a way-station for pilgrims to Bardsey Island, but destroyed in 1936 in order to build a ...

bombing school in

1936 Events January–February * January 20 – George V of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India, dies at his Sandringham Estate. The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King E ...

. Two of his autobiographical volumes, ''Hen Dŷ Ffarm'' (“The Old Farmhouse”, 1953) and ''Yn Chwech ar Hugain Oed'' (“Twenty-Six Years Old”, 1959) give a portrait of life in this small town at the turn of the twentieth century. Rhydcymerau is part of the

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

of Llanybydder, and has a

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

and a closed primary school. It was also, until his death in 2021, the home of former RAF nurse trainer Antony Conolly. The ''Red Dragon'' pub, which had been closed for several years, was partly demolished in 2016 despite a planning application to do so not having been considered. In August 2022, it was reported that the application to demolish the local Victorian chapel had been rejected.

References

Villages in Carmarthenshire {{Carmarthenshire-geo-stub