Aberdulais is a village and electoral ward in Neath Port Talbot, Wales, lying on the River Neath, in the community of Blaenhonddan. The village grew around the Aberdulais Falls, the site of successive industries and now a hydro-electric station. The National Trust owns and administers the site.

The name Aberdulais is from the Welsh for the mouth of the River Dulais.

Industrial history

Aberdulais has a lengthy industrial history thanks to the abundant supply of energy derived from the waterfall and the presence in the vicinity of coal and timber. The first business here was a copper smelting industry, using ore delivered via boat from Cornwall. Over the years the site was successively used as an ironworks, a cornmill and a tinplate works. The Welsh tinplate industry was very successful for a time, until the American government levied heavy duties on imported tinplate.

The present water wheel is a modern steel structure in diameter. It generates electricity for use on the site, any excess current being fed into the national grid.

Other history

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, various artists visited the falls to paint. In 1795, J. M. W. Turner used a sketch he made here of the waterfall and cornmill to paint his watercolour "Aberdulais Mill, Glamorganshire" which hangs at the National Library of Wales. John Ruskin also painted here. Most of the ward consists of woodland and farmland with a small residential area to the far south. Aberdulais is bounded by the wards of Crynant to the north; Resolven to the east; Tonna to the south; and Cadoxton and Bryncoch North to the west.

In the 2022 local council elections the results were:

{| class="wikitable sortable"

!Candidate

!Party

!Votes

!Status

|-

||Doreen Jones||Labour||186||Elected

|-

||Lee Bromham-Nichols||Plaid Cymru||160||Elected

|-

||Vicki Elizabeth Leclerc||Plaid Cymru||111||

|}

In the 2017 local council elections the results were:

{| class="wikitable sortable"

!Candidate

!Party

!Votes

!Status

|-

||Doreen Jones||Labour||344||Labour hold

|-

||Simon Hopkins||Independent||282||

|-

||Daniel Thomas||Plaid Cymru||118||

|}

In the 2012 local council elections, the electorate turnout was 40.81%. The results were:

{| class="wikitable sortable"

!Candidate

!Party

!Votes

!Status

|-

||Doreen Jones||Labour||431||Labour hold

|-

||Ken Thomas||Plaid Cymru||290||

|}

References

  • Cwmdulais Historical Society
  • www.geograph.co.uk : photos of Aberdulais and surrounding area
  • Aberdulais Sion Calvinistic Methodist Chapel monumental inscriptions and images