Penderyn

Whisky at the valley head

The whisky at Penderyn is made with spring and borehole water drawn from beneath the distillery floor and pushed through copper single-pot stills designed by Dr David Faraday, a relative of the scientist. Production started here in 2000, and the first bottles launched on St David's Day 2004 in front of Prince Charles, the first Welsh whisky distillery in over a century. The visitor centre runs tours into the production area, which is warm, noisy and floored with metal grids; under-14s cannot go past a certain point. The house style began with Madeira-cask finishing, worked out by the whisky expert Dr Jim Swan.

The village sits at the head of the Cynon Valley on the southern edge of Bannau Brycheiniog, looking towards Rhigos, Pen y Fan and the Beacons. You reach it along the A4059, which feeds into the A465 Heads of the Valleys road; the nearest station is Aberdare, a little over six miles off, and the Stagecoach 8 runs through by day and evening Monday to Saturday, with the 8A covering evenings and Sundays — worth checking times before you travel.

The hilltop inn and church

Up on the hill, the Red Lion is a drovers' inn with flagstone floors, log fires and a tap room, and views over the village and the mountains beyond. It calls itself a 12th-century inn, though the stone fireplace, the high-backed settle and a 1920s bentwood bench are the older things you can actually see; the bar counter only went in in 1978. The kitchen runs seasonal menus, and a sample Sunday list gives 12-hour slow-roasted Welsh beef and lamb, free-range chicken and fish of the day, cauliflower steak with masala chickpeas and Szechuan-crusted mackerel to start, then Cherry Bakewell tart or Welsh cheeses with bara brith. Gower Gold and Draught Bass are the regular casks, and dogs are welcome in the bar. One recent visitor put the appeal plainly: "The views from the car park alone are incredible."

The Church of St Cynog stands on its own hill inside an oval churchyard, the shape of it hinting at a very old foundation. Henry Holiday designed the Ascension east window, made by Powell's of London, and another window remembers William Menelaus, who managed the Dowlais ironworks.

Quarry line and waterfalls

For walking, the Penderyn and Hirwaun Trail follows the former quarry railway beside the River Cynon for a mostly flat 3.2 kilometres, its benches and picnic tables set along a line that once carried limestone and silica down to the ironworks. For something harder, the Four Falls Trail through Waterfall Country takes at least three hours over uneven, climbing ground, and at Sgwd yr Eira a rough, exceptionally slippery path runs behind the falling water itself. There are no facilities at the falls and a long walk back from the car parks, so go prepared.

The Lamb and Dic Penderyn

The Lamb Hotel, down in the village, is a roughly 400-year-old building whose interior carries CAMRA's one-star rating for special national historic interest. Three simply furnished rooms, a stone-flagged passage, red-leatherette benches from the 1960s. Felinfoel Double Dragon is the beer to ask for. Its cellar holds the village's hardest story: after the 1831 Merthyr Rising, Richard Lewis, known as Dic Penderyn, was held here before being hanged for wounding a soldier, a charge he is now accepted to have been innocent of. His reported last words from the scaffold were "O Arglwydd, dyma gamwedd" — O Lord, here is injustice.

A hatch still in use

The old off-sales hatch beside the passage is still in use, so you can knock for a bottle to take away without ever going in.