On February 21, 1804 at the Penydarren ironworks at Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales, the first self-propelled railway steam engine or steam locomotive, built by Richard Trevithick, was demonstrated.
Flavian pottery confirms the origin of the fort as a wooden structure, replaced in stone around AD 100, with the bath house located outside the fort's southern defences contemporary with the rebuilding.
•
In 1802, Homfray commissioned engineer Richard Trevithick to build built one of his high pressure steam engines to drive a hammer at the Penydarren Ironworks.
The village was the terminus of the world's first steam railway journey when on 21 February 1804 the inventor Richard Trevithick drove a steam locomotive hauling both iron and passengers travelled from the Penydarren ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil to the basin of the Glamorganshire Canal at Abercynon.