Long Row, a terrace of twenty-eight houses constructed in three phases, was all built by 1813, adjacent to the Pentrebach Forge (NPRN 91544) set up by the Hill family in 1807. The first phase consisted of six houses, quickly followed by three more, of a type not found elsewhere in South Wales. They were probably built in 1807 or soon after, of rubblestone, double-fronted with two rooms on each floor; both downstairs rooms had fireplaces and the chimneys were brick. At a later stage, rear lean-to single room extensions were added. The houses had gardens extending down towards the turnpike road (later Church Street after the diversion of the turnpike c1840), where there was another pre-1813 building, possibly an ale house but later converted to four houses (see NRPN 18322).
Phases 2 and 3 were houses of the "catslide outshoot" type, single-fronted with the upper storey divided into two rooms by a thin partition. From the upper inner rooms, windows looked into the downstairs pantries. They were built as mirrored pairs, with fireplaces and half-spiral stone stairs in the thickness of alternate party walls. Phase 2 consisted of ten houses added at the south-east end of the terrace, and the slightly later Phase 3 added nine more at the north-west end.
Nos 1 to 23 were demolished in February 1977; at that date the others had already gone.
W J Crompton, RCAHMW, 2 December 2009.