Rhigos

Rhigos is a village in the north of the Cynon Valley, in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, South Wales. The population of the community at the 2011 census was 894. For postal purposes it comes under the town of Aberdare, although it is some 7 miles (11 km) from Aberdare town centre, and 2 miles (3.2 km) from Glyn Neath.

An electoral ward in the same name exists. This ward contains part of Aberdare and had taken at the 2011 Census a total population of 1,700.

Rhigos lies at the apex of the Cynon Valley and the Vale of Neath. The village lies just off the old Aberdare road that was the main link between Aberdare and Glyn Neath before the A465 road was extended. The hamlets of Cefn Rhigos and Cwm-Hwnt lie to the west of the main village.

The name Rhigos is an adaptation of the Welsh Y Rugos (y & grug & collective suffix -os) meaning "the heath". Originally farmland until the late 1700s, the village developed in the Industrial Revolution through the mineral industry, extracting coal, iron ore and limestone.

The first development was at the British Rhondda Colliery, later called "The Pandy" and finally Rhigos Colliery. A drift mine, it closed in 1965. In the 1960s opencast mining took over the surrounding countryside. Firms such as Wimpey, Taylor Woodrow and Parkinsons, bought up the farmland in the area providing a lot of work but at the cost of environmental damage to the landscape. The surrounding area has now returned to green fields. The Tower Colliery, located on the Rhigos Mountain, Craig y llyn, was famously the subject of a worker's buy-out closed in 2008. The closure of Tower saw the last of the deep mines in Wales come to an end.

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