County in Wales
Neath Port Talbot
Two of the world's great actors, Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins, grew up within a few miles of each other in a place famous for steel, waterfalls and rugby.
Key information
- County
- Neath Port Talbot
- Nation
- Wales
- Population
- about 142,000 (2021 Census)
- Area
- about 440 square kilometres
- Known for
- Port Talbot steelworks, Margam Park, Neath Abbey, Vale of Neath waterfalls, Aberavon Beach
- Famous people
- Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, Michael Sheen, Katherine Jenkins
- Football clubs
- Port Talbot Town, Afan Lido, Briton Ferry Llansawel
About Neath Port Talbot
Two Hollywood legends, one stretch of valley
Richard Burton was born Richard Jenkins in the village of Pontrhydyfen, the son of a miner. Anthony Hopkins was born in Margam, just down the road. Both became Oscar-nominated stars, and both have been tied to the area ever since. Michael Sheen grew up in Port Talbot too. In 2011 he led and starred in The Passion, a three-day play staged through the town's streets and beaches, with local people filling the cast. Neath-born Katherine Jenkins, the classical singer, completes a cast list far bigger than a county of this size should have.
The town that steel built
Port Talbot takes its name from the Talbot family of Margam, whose estate owner Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot helped drive the creation of the docks in the 1830s. The harbour fed the copper, coal and tinplate trades of the valleys behind it. In the twentieth century the Abbey Works at Margam turned the town into one of Britain's great steel centres. For decades its furnaces, chimneys and glowing night sky defined the view from the M4. The traditional blast furnaces closed in 2024, as owner Tata Steel moved towards electric arc steelmaking. That shift is a huge moment for a place where generations of families worked the same plant.
A fairest abbey and a deer park with a castle
The Tudor writer John Leland called Neath Abbey the fairest in all Wales. Founded in 1130, its ruins still stand among the old industrial buildings that grew up around it. At Margam, a different abbey story left a very different legacy. The old monastic site gave rise to Margam Country Park, with its Victorian Tudor-Gothic castle, a grand orangery and a herd of fallow deer. The Margam Stones Museum holds carved early medieval crosses, a reminder that people were leaving their mark here more than a thousand years ago. Neath itself began as the Roman fort of Nidum, and the Gnoll Country Park above the town has landscaped cascades from the era when wealthy owners reshaped the hillside for effect.
Waterfalls, forests and a proper beach
The Vale of Neath is the gateway to Waterfalls Country, where rivers tumble through wooded gorges around Pontneddfechan and Glynneath. At Aberdulais Falls, the water powered a tinplate works, and the scene drew the painter J. M. W. Turner. Up the Afan Valley, Afan Forest Park became one of Wales's best-known mountain biking destinations, with long trails climbing through conifer plantations. Back on the coast, Aberavon Beach has a wide sweep of sand on Swansea Bay and a seafront promenade, set against the steelworks and the hills behind.
Rugby, rivals and the Welsh All Blacks
Neath RFC, founded in 1871, is nicknamed the Welsh All Blacks for its black kit. Aberavon, the Wizards, are close neighbours and fierce rivals. Rugby has long been a main thread through the valleys here, and the clubs have supplied many players to Wales. Football has its own following. Port Talbot Town, Afan Lido and Briton Ferry Llansawel keep the game going across the area.
Music, canals and a Welsh-speaking heartland
Pontardawe, in the upper Swansea Valley, is known for its long-running folk and roots music festival and a strong tradition of choirs and brass bands. Welsh is still widely spoken in the northern valleys of the area. Neath's canals tell the industrial story. The Neath Canal and the Tennant Canal carried coal, iron and copper to the sea and linked works along the river. Today stretches of towpath and the aqueduct at Aberdulais give a quiet walk through that past.