Welsh Family History Archive

Images of Wales

Skewen (Sgiwen), Glamorgan

Photography by John Ball - 10:30 am, 27 January 1999
(with Agfa ePhoto-307 digital camera)

This morning, I took my car to the garage for its annual service. While the vehicle was being serviced, I spent a pleasant two hours walking in the sunshine round the town of Skewen.

Right: An old gas lamp column on a footpath
leading through Skewen churchyard. The
lamp has long since been converted to
electrical power, but no longer works.

Above: Shops and Post Office in New Road, Skewen.

Above: A terrace of old workers' cottages in New Road, Skewen.

Above: Brook Street, Skewen.

Above: The railway viaduct in Drymau Road, Skewen. The viaduct carries the main
railway line running from Swansea to Cardiff and (eventually) to London.

Above: Graffiti painted on the viaduct says: Llewellyn - the true Prince of Wales.
This is a reference to Llewellyn (Llywelyn), ruler of Wales in medieval times.

Above and below: The parish church of St John the Baptist, set on a hillside overlooking
lower Skewen. The churchyard contains graves dating back to the 1850s.

Above: One of the many interesting gravestone
inscriptions in the churchyard. This one reads:
In Loving Memory of
Joshua, eldest son of
Griffith & Elizabeth Williams of Swansea
& Grandson of the late Francis Taylor of Neath Abbey
Chief Engineer of the S.S. Rhiwabon, wrecked of the
Smalls Lighthouse Jan 29th 1884, aged 30 years

He has anchored his soul in the Heaven of Rest,
He sails the wide seas no more,
The tempests may sweep o'er the wild stormy deep
He is safe where the storms come no more.


Below: The Calvinistic Methodist Chapel, Skewen.