Worker's House

A terraced time capsule

Cadw cares for all of Wales’s past – which includes industrial cottages as well as ancient ruins. Worker's House 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.