Bedlinog is a beautiful unique mining village situated high up in the Taff Bargoed Valley 

Prior to the sinking of its collieries in the 1870s, it was a small hill-farming community. It was triangular shape with three quite separate clusters of cottages. At one end of the base lay Cwmfelin (Valley of the Mill), near where a chapel, Salem (1830) was built and where the village square and village inn soon appeared.

About a mile away, another small settlement, known as the Coli, housed the early miners, who worked in the small drifts, driven into the mountain side. Near the top of the hill was Llwyn Crwn (Round Grove) where Bedlinog Colliery was sunk in 1874. In the years which followed, Bedlinog grew into a closely knit community of miners and their families.

It has a population of approximatley 2,000 people. The combined population of Bedlinog and Trelewis has been recently recorded as approximately 3,140. Previously, it was surrounded by coal mines and nearly all jobs were related directly to this trade but all the mines are now closed. Unemployment is high but the increasing prosperity and growth of Cardiff, only half an hour south by car, has created many commuter jobs and a feeling of optimism for the future.

The village is sometimes seen as being isolated, but it is only a 30 minute drive from Cardiff, 45 minutes from Swansea and 45 minutes from Newport. The village is surrounded by rolling, green hills, from the top of which the Severn Estuary and the coast of Devon can be clearly seen.

Bedlinog is colloquially known as "Bedrock" after the town in The Flintstones. In the past, Bedlinog was also nicknamed "Little Moscow" owing to the relatively high concentration of trade unionists with communist sympathies.

The village is home to professional darts player Barrie Bates!