Immediately to the north of the village is the hill of Cefn Cil Sanws on the southern slopes of which is Merthyr Tydfil Golf Club.

This additional line extended the Brecon and Merthyr Railway and was only agreed following a special Act of Parliament in July 1862 to allow its construction.

[2] The Cefn Coed Cemetery with its Jewish burial ground is listed on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.

Coed y Cymer was a dense woodland here that was felled in 1765 to provide wood for Anthony Bacon’s blast furnace at his Cyfarthfa ironworks.

In place names in Welsh, the definite article might be omitted (though understood to be present) and so “Cefncoedcymer” is also found – an internet search will show such instances of this spelling.

As the village is on the northern boundary of the Gwentian dialect area of the Welsh language (i.e. the south-east of Wales), local pronunciations have shown typical Gwentian features, with “cefan” [ˈke·van] for “cefn” [ˈke·vɛn], “co'd” [kɔ:d] for “coed” [kɔi̯d], and “cymar” [ˈkəmar] for “cymer” [ˈkəmɛr], though with the disappearance of traditional spoken Welsh in the area they are probably not often heard nowadays, if at all.

He produced an alternative route into Merthyr, curving the viaduct, so that the railway line avoided property owned by ironmaster Robert Thompson Crawshay.

It was planned to be constructed entirely of limestone like the nearby Pontsarn Viaduct but a trade union strike by stonemasons in February 1866 caused the company to buy 800,000 bricks and use bricklayers to complete the 15 arches.

In the late 1890s a simple brick built prayer house (ohel) was constructed, again using funds raised by the local Jewish community.