About rural Torfaen

Torfaen is one of Wales’s smaller counties, but beyond its valley towns lies a rural fringe shaped by hills, woodlands, and pockets of farmland that still carry the marks of agricultural life. From the ridges above Cwmbran and Pontypool to the open land around Blaenavon, a quieter countryside exists alongside the legacy of coal and steel.

Hill grazing continues on moorland commons, where sheep wander across heather and grass slopes above settlements. Many of these lands are worked through traditional grazing rights, passed down through families, and maintained through community associations.

The eastern parts of the county, near Llantarnam and Ponthir, support small-scale mixed farms, with cattle, hay meadows, and growing areas providing both food and income. Agroecology and woodland regeneration projects are emerging on the rural fringe, blending old and new models of rural enterprise.

Torfaen’s countryside is modest in scale, but important — an enduring part of the landscape and a quiet counterbalance to its industrial past.