Tredegar
| Tredegar | |
|---|---|
 The Town Clock |
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 Tredegar
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| Tredegar shown within Blaenau Gwent | |
| Population | 15,103 {2011} |
| OS grid reference | SO145095 |
| Community |
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| Principal area | |
| Ceremonial county | |
| Country | Wales |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | TREDEGAR |
| Postcode district | NP22 |
| Dialling code | 01495 |
| Police | Gwent |
| Fire | South Wales |
| Ambulance | Welsh |
| EU Parliament | Wales |
| UK Parliament | |
| Welsh Assembly | |
Tredegar (pronounced /trᵻˈdiːɡər/, Welsh: [trɛˈdeːɡar]) is a town and community situated on the Sirhowy River in the county borough of Blaenau Gwent, in southeast Wales. Located within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire, it became an early centre of the Industrial Revolution in South Wales. The historic Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia, United States was named in honour of the town.
It is sometimes wrongly claimed that the name Tredegar can be explained as tre deg erw, an adaptation and reduction of "tref y deg erw" or reduction of "tre'r deg erw" ("tref" is an older form of "tre"; "y" is the definite article after a consonant, and "'r" is the definite article after a vowel; in either case in place names the linking definite article is often dropped, hence pairs such as "Glan-y-môr, Glan-môr" (the sea's edge) or "Cae'r Maen, Cae Maen" (the field of the standing stone). Deg erw is Welsh for "ten acres"; "tre" in newer place names in the industrialised valleys means "town", and equates to English names with "town" (usually a grand name for rows of workers' housing) (e.g. Hopkinstown, Rhondda) or "ville" (e.g. Edwardsville, Merthyr Tudful). Historically "tref / tre" was approximately a "homestead, farmstead, hamlet, estate". In this respect we can compare the sense development of Old English "tūn" (= farmstead) to modern English "town". So "tre deg erw" is plausible morphologically, but is not the origin of the name "Tredegar".
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