Skewen

Skewen Welsh: Sgiwen
A view over Skewen
Skewen Location within Neath Port Talbot
Population	8,500
OS grid reference	SS727974
Principal area	Neath Port Talbot
Preserved county	West Glamorgan
Country	Wales
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	NEATH
Postcode district	SA10
Dialling code	01792
Police	South Wales
Fire	Mid and West Wales
Ambulance	Welsh
UK Parliament	Aberavon

Skewen (Welsh: Sgiwen) is a village within the county borough of Neath Port Talbot, in Wales. The village is served by Skewen railway station and has its own rugby club.

History

Skewen was once an industrial village. There were a number of collieries around the village (see link below). The Crown and Mines Royal Copper Works and the Cheadle and Neath Abbey Ironworks were once important industrial sites which stood close by. Old top-loading blast furnaces can also be seen at Neath Abbey. To the south of Skewen lies the village of Llandarcy, the site of the country's first oil refinery. The site of this former oil refinery is now being developed as an urban village called Coed Darcy, a development which was promoted at its start by the Prince of Wales's Foundation for the Built Environment.

Monuments of interest

The ruins of Neath Abbey, a former Cistercian monastery, are now in the care of Cadw. On Mynydd Drumau to the north of the village is an ancient standing stone known as the Carreg Bica (or 'Maen Bradwen').

Notable people

• The village is the birthplace of Sir Samuel Thomas Evans (1859–1918), British judge and politician who was appointed Solicitor-General in 1908 and became the President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division in 1910.
• Skewen is also the birthplace of internationally successful singer Bonnie Tyler and Welsh composer David John de Lloyd (1883-1948).
• Comedian Eddie Izzard lived in the village for a short time during childhood.
• The grandparents of the legendary American entrepreneur Howard Hughes are believed to have lived in Skewen in the 1930s.
• The notorious murderer, Elizabeth "Betty" Maude Jones, née Baker (1926-?), was born in Skewen. In October 1944, she and an American paratrooper named Karl Hulten (1922-1944), sometimes branded "the Blackout Bonnie and Clyde", carried out a series of brutal crimes that culminated in the murder of a London taxi driver. Both she and Hulten were sentenced to death, but Jones was reprieved by the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison.

Nearest places

• Neath Abbey
• Llandarcy
• Birchgrove

External links

• Skewen Colliery
• www.geograph.co.uk : photos of Skewen and surrounding area