Maerdy

Coordinates: 51°40′22″N 3°29′00″W / 51.672653°N 3.483313°W / 51.672653; -3.483313

Maerdy (Welsh: Y Maerdy) is a village and community in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, and within the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan, Wales, lying at the head of the Rhondda Fach Valley.

History

"Maerdy" is a Welsh word meaning "house of the mayor", and may indicate a medieval origin. The "mayor" was the official also known as the reeve, usually the most affluent farmer in the area.However the original ancient Welsh meaning of Maerdy is Slave house (Maer -Slave, Dy - House). The name is found in several locations throughout Wales and may well indicate the site of Dark age slave markets.The use of the word 'Mardy' in colloquial English to describe a sullen and sulky individual would appear to stem from the old Welsh word for slave.

The area grew from a farming community to town around the coal mining industry and the development of Mardy Colliery in the late 19th century, but its last pit (Mardy Main) shut in 1990. Maerdy was not originally an area of industrial confrontation, with the Cambrian mines of Pentre showing far more socialist ideals. This view would change by the mid to late 20th century when Maerdy became synonymous with working class syndicalism and solidarity. In the mid-twentieth century Maerdy was associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain and radical miners' leaders such as Arthur Horner and was known as Little Moscow. By the time of the Miners' strike in the 1980s, Maerdy was the location of one of the last working mines in the south Wales valleys, and the pictures of the returning miners once the strike was resolved was one of the defining moments of late 20th century Welsh history.