Port Talbot Past & Present

The origins of the town go back a long way in time, and the earliest settlements owe their existence to the river waters flowing down the valleys. The largest and most important of these is the Afan valley, and our film begins in Abergwynfi, Blaengwynfi and Glyncorrwg, formerly mining villages, before working its way down through Cymmer, where the railway is now a distant memory. Later in the film, not shown in this edited excerpt, Pontrhydyfen, with its impressive viaducts, leads into Cwmavon, the centre of industry in Victorian days, and here the valley emerges onto the coast where the docks which gave Port Talbot its name are situated. Aberavon lost most of its public houses with 1970s redevelopment, but Taibach still has many of its "small houses", and Margam has a castle and a massive steelworks.