Caerphilly (county borough)

The economy of the area covered by the county borough was formerly dominated by the mining industry. In 1950 there were 29 pits, employing 24,000 people, but the last pit closed in 1990. Since then the area has turned to light industry and manufactures a variety of goods, including electronics, plastics, carpets, synthetic resins, and paper products. Service industries are also of importance, as is tourism.

The town of Caerphilly, in addition to its light industry and its role as the market town for the agricultural products of the lowland areas of the county borough, acts as a residential suburb of the city of Cardiff. The cheese bearing the town's name, and its most famous product, is still produced on a small scale by local farmers although Caerphilly cheese is now made commercially only in England, especially in the south-west.

The Roman conquest of the area covered by Caerphilly county borough began towards the end of the 1st century ad. One thousand years later, the Normans began their conquest. The area had by then become part of the lordship of Morgannwyg. Welsh opposition to English rule erupted in the late 13th century under the leadership of Llywelyn ab Gruffudd; his forces destroyed the original Caerphilly Castle in 1270. Construction of a new castle began the following year. Morgannwyg formed the major part of the county of Glamorganshire that was created under the 1536 Act of Union between England and Wales. Caerphilly, which had grown up around the castle, became a centre of the Methodist revival in the 18th century; the first synod of the Calvinistic Methodists was held in a farmhouse near the town in 1743. It remained a market town with an economy based largely on cheese until the second half of the 19th century, when it became a centre for the construction of railway rolling-stock. The Rhymney Valley area had become industrialized earlier in the century, with the exploitation of the coalfield.