750-600BC. These precious and unique items can be found in the National Museum and Galleries of Wales. The first raising of the red flag took place on nearby Hirwaun Common which subsequently led to the Merthyr Uprising in 1831. Industrial history Originally farmland until the late 1700s, the village developed in the Industrial Revolution through the mineral industry, extracting coal, iron ore and limestone. What is believed to be the first coke fired furnace was built on nearby land by John Mayberry of Brecon in 1757. It came into the possession of the Crawshay family in 1819, which provided much employment until the early 1830s. Francis Crawshay famously built a folly on nearby land and was apparently the only member of the family to speak Welsh. The site was then taken over by the Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Company which ran until the 1930s. British Rhondda Colliery, later called "The Pandy" and finally Rhigos Colliery was opened during the 1920s. This was a drift mine, and it closed in 1965. Coal was extracted from land near Rhigos in 1864 from a drift mine called Tower Graig. This mine is noted to have been discontinued, but there are records that 420 men were employed by The Marquess of Bute to extract coal from Tower Colliery around the 1890s. The Tower Colliery and was famously the subject of a worker's buy-out closed in 2008 and its closure saw the last of the deep mines in Wales come to an end. However, Tyrone O'Sullivan who was part of the worker buy out, spoke about the possibility of the land being regenerated in the future. Indeed, in 2019 RCT Council announced that planning had been unanimously granted for Zipline Cymru to construct of a new line at the Tower site which will be the focus for the development of tourism in the area. Hirwaun Industrial Estate During the Second World War, those not within the colliery industry, and hence in reserved employment, could find similar work at ROF Hirwaun, which was actually sited within Rhigos parish where the present day Industrial Estate is located. Developed by Royal Ordnance Factory and the Ministry of War from 1942 as an offshoot of ROF Newport, it was an engineering ROF producing .303 cartridge cases for Lee–Enfield rifles, and 9mm cartridge cases, which were then shipped to be filled at a Filling ROF. Having built three new