DYFFRYN CLYDACH

Let us now leave the site of the Ironworks on the main road and turn to the left up Taillwyd Road. High above us, on the right, is Moriah Chapel, opened in 1906.  As we continue along the road, notice the rounded, black stones atop the dry stone wall. Look carefully and you can see patterns where the stone has flowed, for these are cast slag from the copperworks (see later).  We come to what was last century a traditional woollen mill, and the mill building still exists today, being used by the firm of Histon Overalls and being supported by the massive pillars cast at Neath Abbey Ironworks. Initially the woollen mill was powered by an enormous, twenty ton water-wheel and later by a water turbine. Engines were next substituted to avoid problems in a drought and, later still, electric motors in 1945. Just below the waterfall of the river Clydach a forge and rolling mill had been constructed by Neath Abbey Ironworks in 1825, using a water-wheel for power, and in 1870 the forge was converted to a textile mill.

A dam had been constructed in 1840 in the valley of Cwmfelin to provide a continuity of water supply for the water-wheels of the Abbey Ironworks, and below this dam the river Clydach tumbles over the falls just above the site of the foundry and woollen mill. The Cwm Clydach pond is still there today, though it's water level is considerably reduced, and the pond is much silted up.

This woollen mill was the oldest in Glamorgan at the time it closed in 1974. It produced check blankets, tweeds, travelling rugs, Welsh