POI 1 - The Powder Store

As you climb up from the lakes by the visitor centre you'll soon discover a path leading off on the right hand side. As you stop to catch your breath and adjust your layers its worth walking up the path and exploring the old powder store. This is where explosives for the colliery were kept. It has thick concrete walls and is triangular in shape so that if there ever an  explosion the impact would be forced upwards rather than out. The only reason it survived is because it was out of use at the time of the colliery decommissioning and was hidden behind huge banks of waste material from the pit - the path you are climbing on was actually used to transport waste to the top spoil.There is an information board there so worth a small detour.

POI 2 - the Boundary Stone

The higher stone here marked the mineral rights of the area, and showed the boundary for the mineral rights for the Marquess of Bute in Glamorgan. John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess Of Bute was  part of a very wealthy Scottish aristocratic family and known as a dour industrialist and land manager who had a significant impact on South Wales.  He developed the iron and coal industry of the area and built Cardiff docks  

His son, John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute was one of the wealthiest men in the world. He's ideas and money funded the architectural imagination of William Burges and led to the famous Victorian renovations of Cardiff Castle and the building of Castell Coch. They also rebuilt of one of the family ancestral seats - Mount Stuart House on the Isle of Bute - after it was damaged by fire in 1877.  This project reused many of the builders and workmen from South Wales and if you visit the house you can still see the names of skilled tradesmen from South Wales carved into the furniture. It was reportedly the first house to ever have an indoor heated swimming pool and the first house in Scotland to be lit by electricity.

POI 3 - Troed-y-rhiw Jestyn farm

As we stop to admire the view on Brithdir common we can see Troed-y-rhiw Jestyn farm. It was abandoned in 1970's while the colliery was still being worked. It was used by a film crew as the home of a group of environmentalists in the 1973 BBC Dr Who episode "The Green Death". The Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) investigates a South Wales mine where waste from an oil plant has killed miners and made maggots grow to giant size. If you are intrigued, you can watch in on iPlayer!

The large house on the other side of the valley was formally the old pit managers house, and it used to have a gantry walk way from the property to the colliery. The current owner is an ex-miner, who invested his redundancy money to train in a new skill - engraving. He now owns a successful gun engraving business, and Eric Clapton is rumoured to have visited to get his shot gun engraved. 

As we look cross to Deri its interested to remember that it used to be two sperate settlements - with the houses on the other side of the road being Ysgwydd Gwyn. The word Deri means oak - and we will see why when we walk through an enchanting woodland. Note however the effect of grazing livestock - there are no young saplings or trees growing in this area.

POI 4 - Celtic crosses, chapels and memorials

As we walk along the Cefn-y-Brithdir ridgeway we come across two significant sites.  Firstly we see an inscribed stone near the site of  a 7th century memorial stone of Tegernacus. You can hop over the wall and in the field you'll a  marker where there once stood a roughly cut massive slab of stone. On its surface was a Latin inscription. Translated this read ‘Tegernacus, son of Martius lies here’. The original stone is now in the National Museum of Wales. Tregernacus is often referred to as Roman who lost his life in battle - but in fact it is believed it dates from 100-200 years after the Romans left the area.

150m along the trackway we see a monument the remains of a chapel dating to the medieval period. Until its demolition in 1960, the  chapel of Capel-y-Brithdir stood alongside the ridgeway route along. During demolition, a cross incised slab of probable 10th-11th century date was found built into its walling. You can view the slab in St Gwladys's Church, Bargoed. The demolished remains of the church were heaped within the lower part of its walls to form a platform-like monument. The scheduled area comprises the rectangular platform but not the surrounding churchyard (which contains recent graves). The area is of national importance as it it rare and unusual to have a memorial stone , which was presumably the predecessor of the first church here, so close to a later church site.

POI 5 - Groesfaen 

This was the site of the Groesfaen pit and there remains a small row of miners houses long the roadside. The pit was first sunk in 1092, employed 720 men in 1967 and closed in 1968.

As we walk down to the river we pass the Caradoc bridge. During the Roman conquest of Britain there were many years of bitter fighting between the Roman legions and the Celts. The Silures lived in South East Wales and were led by the legendary hero Caradoc and put up a fierce resistance. Even after Caradoc’s capture and transportation to Rome, the fighting in Wales continued for another thirty or so years.  This bridge remembers Caradoc; it was unfortunately damaged during storm Dennis and is still awaiting repair. Groesfaen translates as - stone (faen) cross (groes). As we overlook the river we can see a flat slab of rock  protruding into the water - it is rumoured that this was used as a crossing place or ford for the Roman legions as they moved from Gelligaer towards Brecon.  

The area and pit were served by the Rhymney Railway running from Newport to Brecon. This closed in 1964, and is now the cycle route that takes up north back towards Deri. We can see the old halt, primarily used for carrying coal but was also used by passengers.

 POI 6 - Memorial Plaque

Further along the cycle track we see a memorial plaque to commemorate the Darran Pit explosion, 29th October 1909.  The incident killed 27 men, including father and sons and five rescue workers. Until this date the mine was considered a safe mine and throughout its history it had been worked with naked lights.

As you leave the outskirts of Deri and begin the steep climb through cut back bracken you will see an old winding wheel platform that was used to move waste to the top of the valley.

POI 7 -  Old mills and Baptisms

As we stop at the road junction with Mill Road  in Tir-y-Felin we can take a breather and look around. As the name suggests there was an old water mill in the area and you can see the old mill house - you can still see the mill stones in the garden.  As we descend down a small hill we cross a footbridge over Nant-y-Felin - this crossing was the site of a small Baptism pool.

POI 8 - Land of My Fathers

As you follow the bridleway towards the common, look left and you will see Ffos yr hebog farm, easily identified with the yard being the parking spot for Howells coaches. There is evidence that the poet Evan James spent his early life in this farm before moving to Pontypridd. He wrote a poem where he fondly remembers this farm; he also wrote the Welsh National anthem - could this view and area have inspired those famous words?

POI 9 - House Platforms and views over the Beacons

As we skirt along the eastern edge of Geligaer common you can enjoy views over the country park and across to the Bannau Brycheiniog in the distance. As you descend back towards Parc Cwm Darran you will walk past some small, flat square stone sections on the leeward side of the hill. These are the remains of two early platform houses in the area. We also see burnt mounds in the area; these are archaeological feature consisting of a mound of shattered stones and charcoal, normally with an adjacent hearth and trough. Take a moment tho  consder how life would have been living in this area in the past.