Brynmawr, Breconshire

Historical Description

Brynmawr, a market-town and a civil and ecclesiastical parish in Breconshire. The town is 14½ miles west-northwest of Merthyr Tydfil, 22 north of Cardiff, and 173 from London. It has a station on the Ebbw Vale, Merthyr, and Abergavenny branch of the L. & N.W.R., and a post office with money order and telegraph departments. Acreage of the civil parish, 1436; population, 6413; of the ecclesiastical parish, 6143. It was once a large seat of coal and iron-works, but the coal is exhausted and the iron ore is not suited to the present method of manufacturing steel. Markets are held on Saturdays, and fairs on Whit Monday and the Monday before 25 Sept. The town is governed by a local board, which holds its meetings in the Market Chambers, and is a seat of petty sessions. There are also a public hall and two banks. The cemetery of 11 acres was opened in 1851, and the churchyard was consecrated in 1888. The ecclesiastical parish was constituted in 1875. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of St David's; net value, £230 with residence. Patron, the Bishop of St David's. The church was erected in 1872. There are Roman Catholic, Congregational, Baptist, Wesleyan, Primitive and Calvinistic Methodist, and Presbyterian chapels.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Land and Property

A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Breconshire is online.

Maps

Online maps of Brynmawr 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:

• South Wales Daily News
• The Cardiff Times
• Western Mail