Port Talbot Town Heritage Trail
- Vantage Point 1: Carmel Chapel, Riverside
- Vantage Point 2: Bethany Square
- Vantage Point 3: Glanafan School, Station Road
- Vantage Point 4: The Grand Hotel
- Vantage Point 5: The Plaza Cinema (Grade II Listed)
- Vantage Point 6: The Station Square
- Vantage Point 7: Aberafan Bridge (Grade II listed)
- Vantage Point 8: The Civic Square
- Vantage Point 9: Aberafan Shopping Centre
- Vantage Point 10: St.Mary’s Churchyard
- Credits
Vantage Point 1:
Carmel Chapel, Riverside
The Trail starts at Carmel Chapel, Riverside, Port Talbot SA13 1PQ. Here you can easily park a car in the Pay and Display car park next door. This Trail will take you round the Town Centre via Vantage Points 1 – 10.
We begin our route with the two modern chapels, Carmel and Riverside, replacements for buildings on the other side of the river, lost when the old town of Aberafan was demolished in the 1970s to make way for the Aberafan Shopping Centre.
Carmel Presbyterian Church
Riverside English Baptist Chapel
The chapels today
Riverside replaced the relatively modern Water Street Baptist Chapel; Carmel, founded in 1810, was the first Nonconformist chapel to be built in the area. It was always closely associated with the congregation at Dyffryn Barn in Taibach, and two memorial plaques from Dyffryn are now in the foyer of Carmel. One is to Evan Griffith, who left money to the Sunday Schools of the two chapels.
The former Carmel Presbyterian Church
The former English Baptist chapel, Water Street
It was Dafydd y Gwehydd (the weaver) who taught the Carmel Sunday school when Dic Penderyn was a boy, and his wife Mary (Macws y Gwehydd), caretaker of Carmel who tended Evan Griffith’s grave.
(See Vantage Point 10 for more about Dic Penderyn)
As you walk past the chapels and then turn right along a row of shops on your right, the River Afan is on your left. Continue towards Station Road (pedestrianised at this point).
On the corner on your right, where the Post Office is now, was once the Plough Inn, in the 18th century one of the very few buildings on this bank of the Afan.
It is said that when Howell Harris, the 18th century revivalist, came to the town, he stopped here in order to preach. The landlady of the Plough was a supporter, and brought out a stool for him to use as a platform, but her husband, not a supporter rushed out and took the stool away. This went on for a while, stool out, stool in, until at last the landlord gave in and Harris duly preached his sermon.
Sadly we can not find a picture of the Plough Inn.
Approaching the canopied bridge over the River Afan and Station Road, look to your left:
See one of several recent public art projects, This Mortal Coil, by Sebastian Boysen, celebrating the industrial history of the town. Standing here you can see the site of the Odeon/Majestic cinema, one of the six cinemas once in the town centre – Tesco was built on part of the site.
Odeon / Majestic Cinema.
At Station Road, cross to the far side and turn right to Bethany Square, by the long-closed Bethany Chapel.
The QR code sign will be on the corner of Forge Road, on the pillar outside the Principality Building Society