The Common is a living and working landscape, steeped in history but sadly we often take this for granted. It is a designated Cadw Historic Landscape due to evidence of continued land use and activity from prehistory to the recent past.
It is a landscape that links the communities who live around it, our Common is a vital green lung of the valleys. At 3,000ha this great expanse of land plays its part in the water and carbon cycles, which shape and support our everyday lives locally, nationally and internationally.
The Common means so much to so many people. For some it is an area to graze animals, to others an open space for health and wellbeing. Some enjoy the rich biodiversity and historical assets, while others may just enjoy it as scenic route to work.
Whatever your passion there is a common thread, it is the landscape that binds the local area together.
While the Common may be rooted in centuries of history the Common is just as relevant to many of our 21st Century challenges –rural economic sustainability, food quality and security, physical and mental wellbeing, flood management, biodiversity and climate change.
COMMON LAND
Explore
Explore this website to learn more about the common and its history as well as the different ways for you to enjoy it responsibly and how to get involved with the land and our work.
Notes from the common
Notes From the Common: November 2025
In a field close to Coly Row in Bedlinog, on the lower slopes of Gilfach yr Encil ridge, there is a wonderful pond. Silver birches surround its waters and rushes and grasses grow along its edges. It is a haven for wildlife and an amazing...
Notes from the Common: October 2025
There is something autumnal about foxes. Maybe it’s the fact that the colour of their coats reminds us of dried, fallen leaves. Or maybe it’s because, as the days shorten, there is more chance that we’ll be out walking at the same time as the fox wends his way back to...
Notes From The Common: September 2025
Something Told the Wild Geeseby Rachel Field Something told the wild geeseIt was time to go,Though the fields lay goldenSomething whispered, "snow." Leaves were green and stirring,Berries, lustre-glossed,But beneath warm feathersSomething cautioned,...
Notes From the Common: August 2025
The Curlew Nothing sounds more like spring and summer than the bubbling call of the curlew – or Pegi Big Hir - Peggy Long Beak - as she’s sometimes known in Welsh. (The Big in the Welsh name is pronounced in the same way as the English word Beak but with a ‘g’ at the...
Notes From The Common: July 2025
A Brief Overview of the Geology of the Gelligaer and Merthyr Common At the summer’s zenith, there is nowhere more beautiful than the Gelligaer and Merthyr Common. It’s a moorland that lies at the north end of the South Wales Coalfields. Looking across the landscape,...
Notes from the Common: June 2025
Rhos Las Pond (Rhaslas on the OS map). Beautiful scenes near the lost Pantywaun and Blaen Carno area. In June 1831, in the town of Merthyr, just beyond the Cefn Merthyr ridge, one of the biggest uprisings by workers against the ironmasters and the capitalist class...