Port Talbot Town Heritage Trail

Vantage Point 8:

The Civic Square

This is the site of Talbot Square, sometimes known as Cwmavon Square, because the lower road to Cwmafan went up from one corner of the square.  In those days High Street (the A48) ran straight through the town from the bridge to Pentyla and this was a busy area, full of inns and shops.

EBENEZER CHAPEL (Grade II listed)

Ebenezer Baptist Chapel today

This chapel, an interesting example of late Victorian architecture, built in 1881, is the oldest building in the square and the only building from the old town centre still remaining. The address was formerly “Talbot Street”.

The original chapel was built c.1836 for the congregation of Carmel Calvinistic Methodist chapel, but Robert Smith, owner of the Margam Tinplate Works, and a deacon at Carmel, fell out with the denomination’s authorities and sold the building to the Baptists, who later rebuilt it.

View of High Street c 1905 looking up towards the Walnut Tree

View of High Street looking down from the Walnut Tree

Cwmafan Road also ran up from here; the area now behind the Civic Centre was built up with streets like Carmarthen Row built as housing for the Margam Tinplate workers, and this was where Dic Penderyn`s birthplace is said to have been. (See 7 and 10)

View of High Street showing the Walnut Tree Hotel on the left

View of High Street showing Maypole Corner c 1930

It would have been here that Oliver Cromwell, on his way to put down a rising in West Wales, demanded to be given the Borough Charter. (He could then have torn it up and demanded that the inhabitants paid for a new charter to allow them to trade).

Aberafan Charter 1304

Happily the quick-thinking Portreeve (mayor) who was chopping wood at the time, was able to hide the charter, which dated back to 1304, in a crack in his chopping block and Cromwell went away empty-handed. The block (or a chest made from it), is now on view in the Civic Centre, and the charter is safely in the West Glamorgan Archives in Swansea.

Wooden chest where the Charter was hidden from Cromwell

WEST GLAMORGAN ARCHIVE SERVICE:

https://www.swansea.gov.uk/article/998/West-Glamorgan-Archive-Service

A later visitor was Lord Nelson, stopping at the Globe Hotel on his way to Pembroke Dock. He had an embarrassing encounter with the then portreeve, whose politeness he took to be a request for a tip.

The Globe Hotel

For a computer model of the Globe Hotel and other historic buildings in the town see: http://history.seanpursey.co.uk/globe-hotel/

As late as 1917 part of the square, opposite Ebenezer Chapel, was occupied by Tŷ Mawr, built by one John David in 1762. (The David family provided the town with Portreeves and mayors between 1789 and 1807.)  At the point when the square was demolished it was the home to a number of shops – Derricks, the record shop, Clifford’s the haberdashers, a butcher’s, a tailor and a jeweller among others. One very small unit, by 1972 a jeweller’s, was originally the town`s lock up for petty criminals and drunks. Daycock’s, who sold equipment for horses, was an echo from the days when Aberafan was a market town – the shop later moved to Taibach.

Next to Ebenezer, and also backing on to the river, were several public buildings – the Aberavon Labour Club, the New Hall and the original, pre-1898 police station and magistrates’ court.

Just past these, at the entrance to a short lane, was the Hong Kong Inn (formerly the Tiger) and across the lane and facing one as you entered the square was a Post Office.

Talbot Square, now Civic Square, with the Hong Kong Inn on the right.

The Causeway Aberavon with Westgate House on left, Angel Hotel on far right, Moriah Chapel top right and Mountain School behind the fence on right. Taken 1905

Leave Civic Square and turn to the Aberafan Shopping Centre, with its lively collection of shops and cafes, to find the next QR sign 9 on the wall near the entrance to the Centre.