Some five hundred yards east of the Glyn Pits is the Upper Race. The cottages in the picture above were situated close to the top of the Race Road, and close to the site of the original Blaendare furnaces, coke ovens and brickworks etc. These cottages were typical workers dwellings of the turn of the eighteenth century, and probably due to lack of money and maintenance, would have suffered from dampness, as they would not have had damp courses, etc. nor, as in the picture above, rainwater gutters or down-pipes, although in the photograph of Long Row, the nearer houses are fitted with both. Undoubtedly, some of the men living here would have been employed at both the Glyn Pits and Blaendare Collieries.