Merthyr Vale ( or Ynyswen) is a linear village and community in the Welsh county borough of Merthyr Tydfil. Lying on the A4054 road it is on the east bank of the River Taff. The community includes the villages of Aberfan on the opposite side of the Taff, Mount Pleasant and the village of Merthyr Vale itself. History The area was referred to and written as Ynys Owen as early as 1630, noting that the narrow valley was heavily wooded, with various traditional longhouse (tyddyn) farms marking out the rural territories. Ynys Owen, which translates from Welsh to English as Owain's riverside meadow, has been claimed by some possibly to commemorate Owain Glyndŵr, whose followers were involved in an uprising around 1400. There had been small scale coal extraction at Danyderi and Perthygleision, but in 1869 John Nixon (mining engineer) started development of the Taff Colliery, later to be known as the Merthyr Vale Colliery. The village immediately grew up around the shaft development, as did the later communities of Aberfan, Nixonville and Mount Pleasant. Completed in 1875, when the first commercial coal was brought up, there was a celebration called in the local Windsor Hotel. As the colliery was not the first developed in the area, and as colliery developers and owners were known to generally restrict spending on surrounding communities in which they housed their workers, Merthyr Tydfil council insisted on Merthyr Vale being developed with both adequate sanitation, as well as community infrastructure. Resultant planning regulations stipulated that the parish had effective sanitary and water supplies from the beginning. Village churches, schools, social buildings For the religious faiths chapels and churches for: Zion, Baptist, Calfaria, Welsh Baptist Bethel, Wesleyan Methodist, Disgwylfa, Calvinist Methodist and Trinity, Presbyterian denominations. The local parish church of St Mary the Virgin, was built alongside the river Taff next to the Colliery in 1926. It was a time of austerity, coinciding with the General Strike. Despite the deprivations of the time, and having very little money, a small group of parishioners encouraged by the Reverend Evans made plans with the help of the colliery engineer. They were fortunate to acquire the dressed stones from an old disused pump house at Pontyrhun Bridge in Troedyrhiw owned by the Glamorganshire Canal. But they would have to dismantle and transport it themselves. A church in Aberdare offered the people of Merthyr Vale a pulpit. Finally, after