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Our heritage cottage is currently closed to allow our team to carry out a full programme of repairs.

Until our cottage is ready for visitors, please check our Find a Place to Visit page to find a Cadw monument near you.

Overview

A terraced time capsule

Cadw cares for all of Wales’s past – which includes industrial cottages as well as ancient ruins. Heritage Cottage in Cwmdare overlooking the Dare Valley Country Park – once a coalmine, but nowadays green again – survives as a time capsule, reminding us what life was like for a 19th-century mining family.

It’s remarkably authentic, with an 1854 cast-iron fireplace where the food was cooked, larder complete with slate slab and stone corner stairs leading to the cramped sleeping areas. Within a row of terraced houses typical – iconic even – of the industrial south Wales valleys, it’s being conserved and restored using traditional techniques.

The cottage is currently not open to the public and visitors are encouraged to use the Country Park and its visitor facilities as a base for exploring the area’s rich industrial heritage. To peer inside workers’ cottages, go to another of our sites in the south Wales Valleys: the pioneering Blaenafon Ironworks.


Opening times

Our heritage cottage is currently closed to allow our team to carry out a full programme of repairs.

Until our cottage is ready for visitors, please check our find a place to visit page for one of our 129 other sites.


Prices

Category Price
Admission
Free

Directions

Road
From the East. Leave M4 at junction 32 and merge onto A470 Merthyr Tydfil. Follow to roundabout and take exit onto A4059 Aberdare. Continue to roundabout take exit onto Cardiff St. B4275 Aberdare Town Centre. Continue onto A4233 All Traffic. Bear right Cardiff, Hirwaun A4059 Trecynon B4275. At roundabout take exit onto Gadlys Rd. B4275 Trecynon. Turn left onto Cwmdare Rd. Cwmdare. Forward onto Dare Rd. Turn left into David St.
From the West. Leave M4 at junction 43 and take exit to A465 Neath, Merthyr Tydfil. Continue to roundabout take A4059 Aberdare, Cardiff A470. At roundabout take exit onto Hirwaun Rd. B4275. Turn right into Cwmdare Rd. Cwmdare. Forward onto Dare Rd. Turn left into David St.
Bike
NCN Route No.478 (1.5m/2.4km)

Postcode CF44 8UE