Rhondda Heritage Park
Make a Pit Stop at the Award Winning Rhondda Heritage Park – Whatever the Weather!
Based at the former Lewis Merthyr Colliery, Rhondda Heritage Park is a living testament to the mining communities of the World famous Rhondda Valleys.
How to find
On the A4058 between Pontypridd and Porth.
The Visitor Centre
The first stop is the Visitor Centre where you will find an indoor reconstruction of a Period Village Street displaying the domestic and commercial life of the Valleys.
The Gift Shop is also located in this area and is stocked with a wide range of gifts, books and souvenirs from Wales.
The first floor houses the Gallery, where a regularly changing programme of exhibitions presents both local and national artists.
Relax in the licensed ‘Valley View’ Restaurant which commands breathtaking views of the lower Rhondda Valleys and serves a wide range of meals and snacks.
Admission to the Visitor Centre is free of charge ( except on special event days)
Black Gold
In its heyday Rhondda’s coal was as important as the oil produced by the Middle East today. This Welsh Valley helped to power the world, and the character and culture of the Rhondda is brought to life in the ‘Black Gold’ story through exciting multi media displays set in three restored colliery buildings.
Accompanied by your ex-miner guide, your tour takes you to in the Bertie Winding House.
This multi media exhibition takes you back in time to the start of mining in the Rhondda Valleys and tells the history of Lewis Merthyr Colliery, the Tynewydd mining disaster and of important figures in South Wales coal mining history.
The Lamp Room will prepare you for a shift in the safest pit in South Wales and here you will discover the importance of safety lamps before collecting your mining helmets and descending - just like a working miner - in the ‘cage’ to ‘pit bottom’ where your underground experience begins.
Once underground you will soon appreciate what life was like as a coalminer.
You can touch the machinery, hear the effects as explosives are detonated, smell and even taste the changing atmospheric conditions and humidity of life underground.
As an exciting end to your tour you will be transported back to the surface on an amazing simulated ride where you are hurtled and catapulted through the dark and twisting tunnels.
Your tour continues with a visit to the Fan House.
This multi media exhibition portrays the role of women in the community and the cultural and social heritage of the Valleys is vividly brought to life. It traces history to the end of mining in the Rhondda Valleys.
Finally don’t miss the Trevor Winding House. This multi media exhibition transports you back in time to 1958 where you join your narrator Bryn Rees in the middle of a working shift. See the huge winding engine turning during the show.
For younger visitors the excitement continues with a visit to the action-packed
‘ Energy Zone’.
The ‘Energy Zone’ is suitable for children aged 2-13yrs and is available daily from 10am – 5pm April to September with supervised play available throughout the main school holidays and weekends during this period.
Contact
Rhondda Heritage Park
Lewis Merthyr Colliery
Trehafod
Rhondda Cynon Taf
CF37 7NP
Telephone: 01443 682036
Email: info@rhonddaheritagepark.com