The world famous Rhondda Valley lies north of the Welsh capital Cardiff and is at the heart of industrial South Wales. 

The area commonly known as the Rhondda Valley is in fact two valleys consisting of the Rhondda Fawr and Rhondda Fach, the former being the larger of the two.  It stretches a mere twelve miles northwards and is less than five miles across at its widest.

The town of Porth is commonly known as the gateway to the Rhondda - Porth meaning gateway - as it’s here that the valley splits into two. South of Porth where the Rhondda River joins the River Taff sits the town of Pontypridd, which on the back of the industrial developments of the 19th century became a boomtown.  The town was originally known as Pont y ty Pridd.  However following the construction of William Edwards’s famous bridge in 1755 it became known as Newbridge. In 1856, the town’s postmaster decided that the town, to avoid being confused with other towns of the same name, should revert back to its old name, albeit in a shortened form, and the town became Pontypridd.

At the start of the nineteenth century Pontypridd and the surrounding area was still largely a rural community. The whole Rhondda only had a population of 542 in 1801. It was the opening of the Glamorganshire Canal from Merthyr to Cardiff in 1794 that started the development of the town we see today. Merthyr had been at the heart of the industrial revolution in Wales and was producing the best iron in the world. Pontypridd offered easy access to the coal needed to fire the iron furnaces.  However it was the development of deep steam coal mining that accelerated Pontypridd’s development. The steam coal found in the area was used to power the Royal Navy’s ships and was recognised as being the best in the world.  The first mines to extract steam coal were the Great Western Colliery, Hopkinstown and the Albion, Cilfynydd.

Most of the villages that today surround Pontypridd were originally built as pit villages. Hopkinstown was built around the Ty Mawr Colliery, which opened in 1848.  An indication of the speed of change at this time is the fact that only six years before the opening of Ty Mawr the area was undeveloped countryside. Part of a 51-acre estate owned by Evan Hopkin.

The area changed rapidly once the Great Western or Gyfeillion Colliery (1851 – 1983) and the old Ty Mawr (1848 – 1983) shafts were sunk. Industry however needs workers and workers need somewhere to live. Soon a village began to develop, first as a single row of houses called Rhondda Road. It was not until 1871 that the name ‘Hopkin's Town’, as it was then spelt, first appeared on the census.

Hopkinstown's population grew quickly through the second half of the 19th century.  Additional streets were built and by 1900 the population had risen to around 3,000. The layout of the village today remains remarkably similar to that of a hundred years ago.