Aberavon, Glamorgan
Historical Description
Aberavon, a market-town, municipal borough, and a parish at the mouth of the river Avon, Glamorgan, 1 mile NW of Port Talbot, 6 miles SSE of Neath, 32 WNW of Cardiff, and 196 from London. Aberavon proper is a little inland, and has a station on the Rhondda and Swansea Bay railway. Port Talbot, formerly called Abermouth or Aberavon Port, is about a mile from the town, in the parish of Margam, and comprises the harbour and docks. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office, with a branch post office at Aberavon. Aberavon has grown rapidly in connection with neighbouring mines and collieries and the export of their produce. At Cwm-Avon, in the vicinity, are extensive copper, iron, and tinplate works. The municipal borough was incorporated under the Municipal Corporation Act in 1861, and is governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen, and 12 councillors. The corporation is the urban sanitary authority, and owns the gas and waterworks and markets. There is a good system of main drainage. Population of municipal borough, 6300. The parish comprises 1331 acres of land and 728 of water; population, 6086. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Llandaff; net value, £235. The Church of St Mary, an edifice in the Early English style, consists of nave, chancel, south aisle, and porch, with a tower, and was built in 1861 on the site of the old parish church. It has a beautiful reredos containing figures representing the Good Shepherd and the four evangelists, which were exhibited in the Academy in 1889-the work of H. H. Armstead, M.A. Baglan, which was formerly united to Aberavon, is now a separate benefice; net value, £210. It was severed in 1891. There are chapels for Roman Catholics, Congregationalists, Baptists, Calvinistic Methodists, Primitive Methodists, and Bible Christians. Aberavon is a centre for an intermediate and technical school under the Welsh Intermediate Education Act. Some interesting localities are in the neighbourhood.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Glamorgan | |
Archdeaconry | Llandaff | |
County Court district | Neath | |
Diocese | Llandaff | |
Hundred | Neath | |
Petty-Sessional Division | Aberavon | |
Poor Law union | Neath | |
Registration district | Neath | 1837 - 1921 |
Rural Deanery | Upper Groneath |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
Findmypast, in conjunction with the National Library of Wales and the Welsh County Archivists Group, have the following parish records online for Aberavon:
Parish | Baptisms | Banns | Marriages | Burials |
---|---|---|---|---|
Aberavon | 1787-1912 | 1905-1955 |
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Aberavon from the following:
Maps
Online maps of Aberavon are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following newspapers online: