Nelson, Wales
| Nelson | |
|---|---|
 Nelson
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| Nelson shown within Caerphilly | |
| Population | 4,647 (2011) |
| OS grid reference | ST115995 |
| Principal area | |
| Ceremonial county | |
| Country | Wales |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Treharris |
| Postcode district | CF46 |
| Dialling code | 01443 |
| Police | Gwent |
| Fire | South Wales |
| Ambulance | Welsh |
| EU Parliament | Wales |
| UK Parliament | |
| Welsh Assembly | |
Nelson (Welsh: Ffos y Gerddinen) is a village and community in the County Borough of Caerphilly, Wales. It sits five miles north of Caerphilly and ten miles north of Cardiff, at the lower end of the Taff Bargoed Valley, and lies adjacent to Treharris, Trelewis and Quakers Yard.
Nelson was originally called Ffos-y-Gerddinen, a relatively flat piece of land at the southern extremity of the Taff Bargoed Valley to the south of the hamlet of Llancaiach. It existed on a drovers trail from the South Wales coast towards Merthyr Tydfil and onwards to Brecon and Mid Wales, where an enterprising man built a coaching inn that he called Nelson, possibly after Admiral Lord Nelson and his victory at the Battle of Trafalgar. Had it not been for the development of the South Wales coalfield, Nelson would have remained just a coaching inn surrounded by fields. When the Llancaiach Colliery was developed from 1811, it created a need for new housing for the workers and heavy transport for the coal, which spilled onto the flat lands below the colliery.
Freight transport from Merthyr Tydfil had already brought about the development of the Glamorganshire Canal which by-passed Nelson in the nearby Taff Valley, but in 1841 the Taff Vale Railway's Llancaiach Branch was built specifically to service Llancaiach Colliery and entered the Taff Bargoed Valley via the centre of Nelson. Looking for a name for its station, which was built on the flat land south of the colliery, the directors of the TVR chose the name of the coaching inn. When the Taff Vale Extension railway of the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway was built, it replicated the TVR naming convention for its station, and Nelson was born as a village with a separate identity to Llancaiach.
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