Caerphilly (town)

Caerphilly (town), town, Caerphilly county borough, south Wales. Located some 10 km (6 mi) north of Cardiff on the now largely exhausted coalfield of the Rhymney Valley, Caerphilly is surrounded by hills and dominated by the Norman Caerphilly Castle in the town centre. The castle is the second-largest in Wales and England after Windsor Castle. Historically a mining and light industrial town, Caerphilly was once nicknamed “the Swindon of Wales” because of its large locomotive and carriage workshops; these closed in 1964. Today, the main employment is in light industry and the manufacture of various goods, including electronics, plastics, and synthetic resins. It is also an agricultural market town, and acts as a residential suburb of Cardiff. The crumbly cheese which bears the town’s name was its most famous product for centuries. It is no longer made locally but is still produced in England, especially in the south-west. Caerphilly has the Llancaiach Fawr Living History Museum, which recreates life in a Welsh manor house during the Civil War with guides acting out the lives of a family and their servants. Population (1991) 28,697.