Risca
Risca (Rhisga) is a town in the Caerphilly County Borough and the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire in south-east Wales. Risca has a railway station, opened on the Ebbw Valley Railway in February 2008, after a gap of 46 years. It is split into two communities; Risca East and Risca West. It has a population of 11,700. The town is now part of the Cardiff Capital Region which has a combined population of 1,543,293. Cardiff the capital of Wales can be reached in under 28 minutes from the nearby railway station of Risca and Pontymister station which reopened in 2008 after a gap of nearly 60 years.
The town lies at the south-eastern edge of the South Wales Coalfield and the town has been shaped by mining, together with other heavy industries, for many centuries.
Risca is home to Ty-Sign, which is a large housing estate built in the early 1960s as a satellite village for the then new Llanwern steelworks. Risca has a rural aspect and is surrounded to the east and west by several extensively wooded hills including Mynydd Machen (1,188 ft/362m) and Twmbarlwm (1,375 ft/419m) which attract tourists for the hillwalking and mountain bikers to Cwmcarn Forest Drive.
There is evidence of human habitation in the Risca area going back thousands of years, such as the Silures hillfort on nearby Twmbarlwm, however the area was rural and sparsely populated until the nineteenth century. As local industries expanded and transport links improved with the building of the canal and railways, the population rapidly increased.
Several arguments have been put forward for the derivation of the name Risca/Rhisga including that it comes from the Welsh yr is cae meaning "the lower field" or yr hesg cae meaning "field or rushes" or rhisgl meaning oak bark.
The earliest known official use of the name Risca for the place was in 1476 when two men from Risca were charged at the Newport Assizes although there are also ecclesiastical documents which go as far back as 1146 which include a man called Kadmore de Risca.
From 1540, Risca is found regularly in land transactions involving the Tredegar estates and in 1747 John Wesley recorded a visit in his diary.
Rapid population increase started around 1820 with the opening of the mines.
Note: Until the 1990s, these figures include the population of the nearby villages of Crosskeys and Pontymister but since the reorganisation of wards only includes the population of Risca East and Risca West wards.
The town lies at the south-eastern edge of the South Wales Coalfield and the town has been shaped by mining, together with other heavy industries, for many centuries.
Risca is home to Ty-Sign, which is a large housing estate built in the early 1960s as a satellite village for the then new Llanwern steelworks. Risca has a rural aspect and is surrounded to the east and west by several extensively wooded hills including Mynydd Machen (1,188 ft/362m) and Twmbarlwm (1,375 ft/419m) which attract tourists for the hillwalking and mountain bikers to Cwmcarn Forest Drive.
There is evidence of human habitation in the Risca area going back thousands of years, such as the Silures hillfort on nearby Twmbarlwm, however the area was rural and sparsely populated until the nineteenth century. As local industries expanded and transport links improved with the building of the canal and railways, the population rapidly increased.
Several arguments have been put forward for the derivation of the name Risca/Rhisga including that it comes from the Welsh yr is cae meaning "the lower field" or yr hesg cae meaning "field or rushes" or rhisgl meaning oak bark.
The earliest known official use of the name Risca for the place was in 1476 when two men from Risca were charged at the Newport Assizes although there are also ecclesiastical documents which go as far back as 1146 which include a man called Kadmore de Risca.
From 1540, Risca is found regularly in land transactions involving the Tredegar estates and in 1747 John Wesley recorded a visit in his diary.
Rapid population increase started around 1820 with the opening of the mines.
Note: Until the 1990s, these figures include the population of the nearby villages of Crosskeys and Pontymister but since the reorganisation of wards only includes the population of Risca East and Risca West wards.
Map - Risca
Map
Country - United_Kingdom
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| Flag of the United Kingdom | |
The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England (which included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of Scotland in 1707 formed the Kingdom of Great Britain. Its union in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Most of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which formally adopted that name in 1927. The nearby Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey are not part of the UK, being Crown Dependencies with the British Government responsible for defence and international representation. There are also 14 British Overseas Territories, the last remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's landmass and a third of the world's population, and was the largest empire in history. British influence can be observed in the language, culture and the legal and political systems of many of its former colonies.
Currency / Language
| ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
|---|---|---|---|
| GBP | Pound sterling | £ | 2 |
| ISO | Language |
|---|---|
| EN | English language |
| GD | Gaelic language |
| CY | Welsh language |