Country: | Wales |
Welsh Name: | Sgiwen |
Official Name: | Skewen |
Static Image Name: | Skewen in 2004.jpg |
Static Image Caption: | A view over Skewen |
Unitary Wales: | Neath Port Talbot |
Lieutenancy Wales: | West Glamorgan |
Constituency Westminster: | Aberavon |
Post Town: | NEATH |
Postcode District: | SA10 |
Postcode Area: | SA |
Dial Code: | 01792 |
Os Grid Reference: | SS727974 |
Population: | 8,500 |
Coordinates: | 51.6609°N -3.8399°W |
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.
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.
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').