Cholera Cemetery, Tredegar.

The viewpoint, Cholera Cemetery, Tredegar.

On my way back from Aberdare today, where I had been to place flowers on my parents grave for Palm Sunday, I had an idea. I decided, as I was coming back through Tredegar anyway, that I would try and identify where the Cholera Cemetery is. I rang a friend from another valley and he told me straight away where it was. Cefn Golau pond! Why didn't someone point that out to me before? I have been looking at maps and Google Earth, and still couldn't place it. I went straight to a well known spot (for courting couples) and there it was! How on earth I never knew about this is one of life's mysteries.

A broken gravestone.

It was very poignant. I felt very humble there. Just me on this vast moor, and these poor people who didn't qualify for burial in their Churchyard, alone on this piece of waste ground where they were laid, away from Townships and Hamlets.

There are only 26 gravestones still standing, all surrounded by broken fragments of many others. The rest are lying down on the ground with huge cracks in them. You can look down into a black nothingness where the grave has sunk.

A bleak burial ?

It is so desolate and bleak there. These people who were terrified of catching cholera, knowing they would die if they did, must have known where they were going to end their days. I took many photographs, and plan to go back with a friend at some point, so there will be much more to say about this place in the future.

This is a sceduled Ancient monument

of National Importance.

It is protected by the law.