South Wales Holiday Cottages

More About Holiday Cottages in South Wales

The valleys of south Wales come one after another down to the coast: Ebbw, Rhymney, Taff and Rhondda. The ridges between them are open ground the whole way, high enough to see the Bristol Channel from.

Further west the Llynfi valley holds Maesteg. Over the ridge beyond it is the Afan valley, with its mountain bike trails. Porthcawl and its beaches are half an hour south. Holiday cottages in South Wales are spread from the valleys down to the Vale.

Ironworks, mines and zip wires

Nothing here was built to be pretty. The houses went up in rows to hold men next to the pit. They were built of local Pennant sandstone from the hillside behind. At Blaenavon the ironworks company owned 430 of them by 1833. It also ran the truck shop, where wages could only be spent across its own counter. Blaenavon is one of the places where you will find South Wales holiday cottages.

Then the people left, and the houses survived because nothing came along to replace them. It does not end sadly. When British Coal shut the Tower Colliery coal mine above Hirwaun in April 1994, 239 of the miners bought it. They put £8,000 each of their redundancy into it. They marched back into the pit on 2 January 1995.

You can visit that mountain above Hirwaun today. Zip World Tower now runs its zip wires over the old workings.

Blaenavon Ironworks opens ten until five from the end of March to the start of November. The rest of the year it opens ten until four. Through the winter it shuts Monday to Thursday. It is £8.40 for an adult and nothing for under-fives. You can go into the furnished cottages at Stack Square.

Afan Forest Park still runs six mountain bike trails, from seven kilometres to over forty. They start from hubs at Afan Argoed, Bryn Bettws and Glyncorrwg. Check the trail status before you set out, because sections get diverted. South Wales holiday cottages out towards Afan Forest Park suit mountain bikers.

Walking and cycling

You can walk the Penrhys Pilgrimage Way. It climbs twenty-one miles from Llandaff Cathedral to Penrhys, a hilltop above the Rhondda. The route is made for two days, with an overnight stop at Llantrisant. A statue of the Virgin Mary stands at the top.

With a group of six or eight, the reservoirs and forest tracks above Merthyr Tydfil make an easy afternoon. Blaenavon is nearby too, and Big Pit there is free to enter, with a charge for the underground tour.