Welsh
Neath – Castell Nedd town is situated in Neath
Port Talbot county borough, historic county of Glamorgan
(Morgannwg), Wales. In about AD 75 the Romans chose the site, on the River
Neath (Nedd), for a fort, Nidum, to protect their road from Gloucester to
Carmarthen at the lowest practicable crossing of the river. In the 12th
century a castle was constructed there; the adjoining town was granted a
charter by William FitzRobert, 2nd Earl of Gloucester, but in
1231 the castle was destroyed by the Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Iorwerth.
The 12th-century Cistercian foundation, Neath Abbey, is also
now a ruin.
In
1584 a copper-smelting works was built in the town, using locally mine
coal and Cornish ore, brought cheaply by sea into the river estuary. Other
nonferrous metals (e.g., tin, lead, and silver) came to be smelted there
too, and during the 19th and 20th centuries adjacent
Briton Ferry became a centre for steel making, as the older local
industries progressively declined. Cefn
Coed Colliery Museum provides an insight into the development of coal
mining and life in the mining valleys.
Engineering concerns and others that use steel (e.g., tin-box
manufacturing) are still important, and a large petrochemical industry has
grown since World War II. As a shopping and service centre, the town of
Neath is overshadowed by Swansea, 7 miles (11 km) to the west; but it
still serves the local industrial and mining communities of the district.
On
12 July 1790 a meeting was held at the Ship & Castle at Neath,
attended by Lord Vernon and local people, at which it was resolved that a
canal from Pontneddfechan to Neath would be of great public benefit. On 13
September 1790 a meeting held to approve the line of the canal, surveyed
by Thomas Dadford Junior, his father and brother John. A few years later
Thomas Dadford Junior found it necessary to leave his post of General
Surveyor, due to his being given the contract to build the Monmouthshire
Canal. Thomas Sheasby replaced him. Ynysbwllog Aqueduct opened in 1792.
The canal is now carried in pipes across the remains of this aqueduct. The
canal was completed soon, but in May 1798 an Act of Parliament passed to
extend it by 2.5 miles to near Briton Ferry. On 29 July 1799 the canal,
extended to the Giant's Grave was opened. Navigation ceased on the Neath
Canal in 1934 and about the same time the Tennant canal stopped carrying
commercial traffic.
Welsh
Neath – Castell Nedd town is situated in 
In
1584 a copper-smelting works was built in the town, using locally mine
coal and Cornish ore, brought cheaply by sea into the river estuary. Other
nonferrous metals (e.g., tin, lead, and silver) came to be smelted there
too, and during the 19th and 20th centuries adjacent
Briton Ferry became a centre for steel making, as the older local
industries progressively declined. 
On
12 July 1790 a meeting was held at the Ship & Castle at Neath,
attended by Lord Vernon and local people, at which it was resolved that a
canal from Pontneddfechan to Neath would be of great public benefit. On 13
September 1790 a meeting held to approve the line of the canal, surveyed
by Thomas Dadford Junior, his father and brother John. A few years later
Thomas Dadford Junior found it necessary to leave his post of General
Surveyor, due to his being given the contract to build the Monmouthshire
Canal. Thomas Sheasby replaced him. Ynysbwllog Aqueduct opened in 1792.
The canal is now carried in pipes across the remains of this aqueduct. The
canal was completed soon, but in May 1798 an Act of Parliament passed to
extend it by 2.5 miles to near Briton Ferry. On 29 July 1799 the canal,
extended to the Giant's Grave was opened. Navigation ceased on the Neath
Canal in 1934 and about the same time the Tennant canal stopped carrying
commercial traffic.