South Wales

• 1. Introduction

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  In 1860, the two Rhondda valleys held around 3,000 people. By 1910, the population had soared to 160,000. South Wales, the region that produced this explosive growth, is also a place that nobody can quite draw on a map. It is loosely defined, bordered by England to the east and by mid Wales to the north. Its own people argue over where it starts, where it stops, and even whether its name deserves a capital letter. This documentary asks how a region with such blurry edges came to have such a sharp identity. It asks what coal and iron built there, what they cost, and what is left now that the great pits are gone.

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• 2. A Name Without Borders

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  The Brecon Beacons National Park covers about a third of south Wales. Its summit, Pen y Fan, is the highest British mountain south of Cadair Idris in Snowdonia. Around that upland core, the region's edges are matters of opinion. Everyone accepts Glamorgan and Monmouthshire as part of it, and the region stretches west to take in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. From Swansea westwards, local people would probably say they live in both south Wales and west Wales. Areas north of the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains are generally counted as Mid Wales.

  One definition runs from Pembrokeshire in the west to Monmouthshire in the east, and north to Brecon in Powys. According to the South Wales Guide, that area attracts over 43 million visitors every year.

  The BBC and The Guardian write 'south Wales' in lower case, because the name is a geographical expression rather than an area with firm borders. The Welsh Government's international website, Wales.com, says the name should always be capitalised. Yet it uses the term for a tourism marketing area that leaves out Swansea and Neath Port Talbot, placing them in West Wales. The Welsh Government's main site, Gov.wales, contradicts its sister site and writes 'south Wales'. Only the motorway signs are consistent, and they always use the capital letters.

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• 3. Principalities and Circuits

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  In 1284, the Statute of Rhuddlan began a long period in which crown land in Wales formed the Principality of Wales. That period lasted until the Laws in Wales Act of 1535. During it, the principality was split into two, one for the south and one for the north. The southern principality was made up of Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, lands that had once belonged to the Welsh kingdom of Deheubarth, which means 'the southern land'. Legal responsibility rested with the Justiciar of South Wales, who was based at Carmarthen. Other parts of southern Wales were held by various Marcher Lords.

  The Laws in Wales Acts of 1542 created the Court of Great Sessions, organised around four legal circuits. The Brecon circuit served Brecknockshire, Radnorshire and Glamorgan. The Carmarthen circuit served Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. Monmouthshire was attached to the Oxford circuit. Seven southern counties were therefore set apart from the six counties of north Wales.

  The Court of Great Sessions ended in 1830, but the counties it had used survived until the Local Government Act 1972 took effect in 1974. That reform created Powys, which joined one northern county, Montgomeryshire, to two southern ones, Breconshire and Radnorshire. This is why the status of Breconshire or Carmarthenshire is still debated today.

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• 4. Coal and Iron

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  William Wordsworth was among the romantic poets who praised the river valleys and ancient forests of south Wales. Poets writing in Welsh were less interested in scenery and more interested in society and culture. That rural landscape changed during the early Industrial Revolution, when the valleys of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire were exploited for coal and iron.

  By the 1830s, hundreds of tons of coal were travelling by barge to the ports of Cardiff and Newport. In the 1870s, railways carried coal to Newport Docks, then the largest coal exporting docks in the world. By the 1880s, coal was also leaving from Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan. The Marquess of Bute, who owned much of the land north of Cardiff, built his own steam railway from the city into many of the valleys where coal was being found. He then charged a fee for every ton that travelled out on his lines.

  Merthyr Tydfil grew up around the Dowlais Ironworks, which was founded to exploit the area's abundant iron ore. In time, Merthyr became the largest iron-producing town in the world. New coal mines were sunk nearby to feed the furnaces, and they later supplied coal for export. The 1831 census counted 60,000 people there, more than Cardiff, Swansea and Newport combined. Its industries also included a cable factory and engine sheds.

  Farther up, the Heads of the Valleys towns of Rhymney, Tredegar and Ebbw Vale rose from the same industrial revolution, producing coal, metal ores and later steel. Merthyr was also the birthplace of Joseph Parry, who composed the song Myfanwy.

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• 5. Newcomers and Language

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  Workers came to the valleys from the Midlands, Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall and even Italy. Many came from other mining districts, including Somerset, the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, and the tin mines of Cornwall such as Geevor Tin Mine. The industries needed a large workforce that was experienced and willing, and these migrants fitted the need. Some left again, but many stayed. Between Swansea and Abergavenny, they built English-speaking communities with a unique identity of their own. Workers lived in cottages and terraced houses close to the mines and foundries. The great influx brought overcrowding, which led to outbreaks of cholera. It also brought the near-loss of the Welsh language in the area.

  Locals call the slang and phrases of the valleys communities 'Wenglish', and they often use it for comic effect. The dialect is heard in coastal towns such as Barry, which appears in the BBC comedy series Gavin & Stacey. Welsh was historically the native language of most people in South Wales, but it is now English. Still, significant Welsh-speaking communities remain in the Neath and Swansea Valleys, in places such as Ystradgynlais and Ystalyfera. Those towns share a heritage with the former anthracite mining areas of eastern Carmarthenshire, as much as with the Glamorgan valleys.

  Welsh is now compulsory up to GCSE level for every student who starts school in Wales. Welsh-medium secondary schools operate across the region, among them Ysgol Gyfun Llanhari in Pontyclun, Ysgol Gyfun Y Cymmer in Porth, Ysgol Gymraeg Plasmawr in Cardiff and Ysgol Gyfun Garth Olwg in Church Village. In Cardiff and Newport, a significant number of people from ethnic minority communities speak another first language. Punjabi, Bengali, Arabic, Somali and Chinese are common, and Polish is increasingly heard.

  In the 19th and early 20th centuries, a vigorous literary and musical culture centred on the eisteddfodau. Few English-language writers seem to have connected with either the landscape or that tradition. Dylan Thomas is the one exception, at least to some extent.

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• 6. Disaster and Danger

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  In 1896, a gas explosion at the Tylorstown Colliery killed fifty-seven men and boys. An enquiry found that the pit had not been properly inspected for the previous 15 months. Accidents underground were common across the Rhondda, which had become the heart of the massive South Wales coal industry.

  Along the valley of the Ebbw River, the Carboniferous Black Vein coal seams lay some 900 feet, or 275 metres, below the surface. Mining them caused many tragic explosions, roof collapses and accidents in towns such as Newbridge, Risca, Crumlin, Abercarn and Cwmcarn.

  The Merthyr Vale colliery began to produce coal in 1875. Spoil from the workings was piled on the hills close to the village of Aberfan, which grew up nearby. Tipping continued into the 1960s. Although the pits had been nationalised, the National Coal Board failed to see the danger it had created. The recent dumping of small particles of coal and ash, known as tailings, seems to have been partly responsible for what followed.

  In October 1966, heavy rain made the giant coal tip unstable. A black wave 30 feet high tore downhill across the Glamorganshire Canal. It swept away houses in its path and headed for the village school. In all, 114 children and 28 adults were killed. Within a few decades, the pits that had made such tips would almost entirely disappear.

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• 7. Chapels and Faiths

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  The Baptist congregation at Ilston, on the Gower, eventually moved to Swansea, Massachusetts. Those who stayed in Wales faced a changed world after Anglican worship was restored with the Book of Common Prayer in 1662. Even so, several 'gathered' churches survived among the Baptists, Independents and Presbyterians. In the 18th century, some members grew dissatisfied with the theological innovations of trained ministers and founded new congregations, such as the one at Hengoed near Ystrad Mynach. Churches at Groeswen and Watford, both near Caerphilly, took part in the Methodist movement and received frequent visits from John Wesley.

  The largest denomination became the Calvinistic Methodists, later the Presbyterian Church of Wales, whose chapels can be seen in many parts of the region. These were mainly Welsh-language congregations. Anglicanism in South Wales became autonomous from the Church of England through the Welsh Church Act 1914. The immediate demise that many feared for the Church in Wales has not taken place. There are also Brethren Assemblies in Cardiff and the Swansea area, and Free Presbyterian Churches in Rhiwderin near Newport and in Merthyr Tydfil.

  The Roman Catholic community survived systematic persecution between the 17th and 19th centuries, especially in Brecon and among minor gentry such as the Vaughans of Welsh Bicknor on the Monmouthshire-Herefordshire border. Later urban Catholic congregations included the Bracchi, Italians in the café and catering trades who often came from Bardi in the Apennines.

  Post-war diversity brought mosques, especially in Cardiff and Newport, and Sikh gurdwaras, including one on the mountain near Abercynon. Evangelical and Pentecostal congregations have also grown. These communities often add a strongly international element to local life. One example is the 'Pont' twinning project between Pontypridd and Mbale, Uganda, which also led to Fairtrade relationships with primary producers worldwide.

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• 8. After the Pits

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  By July 1985, just 31 coal pits remained in the region. The Great Depression of the 1930s had already closed almost half of the pits in the South Wales Coalfield, and closures continued after World War II. The UK miners' strike of 1984-85 followed, and by the early 1990s only one deep mine remained. That was Tower Colliery, the last traditional deep-shaft mine. It had been sold off by the National Coal Board into private ownership before it closed in January 2008.

  Service industries have largely replaced coal and iron. Along the M4 corridor, the cities host blue-chip companies such as Admiral Insurance, Legal & General and the Welsh-based Principality Building Society. Port Talbot Steelworks, the largest steel producer in the UK and one of the biggest in Europe, also sits on the corridor. Telephone call centres are common in the Valleys, and Merthyr Tydfil hosts the principal UK call centre for the German mobile telephone company T-Mobile. Many jobs come from small family businesses. Yet large factory units, empty or turned over to retail, bear witness to the lack of success in replacing the older industries.

  In 2021, the Welsh screen sector had a turnover of £575 million. Studios have been established in Cardiff, including Wolf Studios Wales, Seren Stiwdios and Enfys Studios. Dragon Studios is in Bridgend, and Bay Studios is in Swansea. Welsh national media is based in Cardiff, where the BBC and ITV have their main studios and offices. Great Western Railway runs Class 800 trains from Swansea, Cardiff Central and Newport to London Paddington. Transport for Wales Rail operates most other services, including the Valley Lines.

  Much of the landscape has recovered. The upper Neath valley, the Vale of Glamorgan and the valleys of the River Usk and River Wye remain unspoilt enough to have been designated Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Once heavily industrialised sites have reverted to wilderness, and some now carry cycle tracks and other outdoor amenities.

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