Rhymney (; ) is a town and a community in the county borough of Caerphilly, South Wales. It is within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire. With the villages of Pontlottyn, Fochriw, Abertysswg, Deri and New Tredegar, Rhymney is designated as the 'Upper Rhymney Valley' by the local Unitary Authority, Caerphilly County Borough Council. As a community, Rhymney includes the town of Rhymney, Pontlottyn, Abertysswg, Butetown and Twyncarno. Rhymney is known to many outside Wales as a result of the song "The Bells of Rhymney", a musical adaptation of a poem by Idris Davies. Etymology The town is named after the Rhymney River, whose name derives from the Welsh word "auger" + , a derivational noun ending. History The countryside around present day Rhymney would have been very different in the early 17th century. A new parish of Bedwellty had been formed in 1624, covering the lower division of the Wentloog Hundred, in the county of Monmouth, a hilly district between the river Rumney, on the West, and the Sirhowey on the East. The upper Sirhowy Valley at this time would have been a natural well wooded valley, consisting of a few farms and the occasional small iron works where iron ore and coal naturally had occurred together. Later it would have contained the chapelries of Rhymney and Tredegar, the latter being known as a market town. It was not until the 1750s that industrialisation began with the establishment of the Sirhowy Iron Works. It was from this pastoral pre-industrial period that the Buccaneer Henry Morgan was born around 1635 -the eldest son of Robert Morgan, a farmer living in Llanrhymny, today known as Rhymney three miles from Tredegar. In Welsh the original meaning of Llan is ‘an enclosed piece of land’. The town was founded with the establishment of the Union ironworks in 1801, with the Rhymney Iron Company later being founded from a merger between the Bute and Union Ironworks in 1837. The ironworks used local coking coal, iron ore and limestone. From the mid-19th century, steam coal pits were sunk to the south of the town. The ironworks closed in 1891 and by the early 20th century the town's collieries employed nearly the entire local population. The parish church of Rhymney is a Grade II listed building that was constructed in the neo-classical style. It was built by architect Philip Hardwick from London on commission for Andrew Buchan