Felindre is a rural village in the

City and County of Swansea Swansea ( ; ) is a coastal City status in the United Kingdom, city and the List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, second-largest city of Wales. It forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area, officially known as the City and County of ...

, south

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

. Felindre is located in the far north of the city of Swansea, in the electoral ward of Mawr. The nearby Lower Lliw Reservoirs are a popular venue for walking and fishing. The water mill in the village was working until the late 1960s, there was also an abattoir and a post office in the village. It has three shops. There is also a public house in the village, the Shepherds Inn. The primary school in the village was Welsh speaking and closed in 2019.

Felindre works site

In 1956, the Steel Company of Wales opened a

tinplate Tinplate consists of sheet metal, sheets of steel coated with a thin layer of tin to impede rust, rusting. Before the advent of cheap mild steel, the backing metal (known as "") was wrought iron. While once more widely used, the primary use of tinp ...

works at Felindre to complement new facilities at

Port Talbot Port Talbot (, ) is a town and community (Wales), community in the county borough of Neath Port Talbot, Wales, situated on the east side of Swansea Bay, approximately from Swansea. The Port Talbot Steelworks covers a large area of land which d ...

and Trostre. In 1967, the Steel Company of Wales was nationalised, becoming part of

British Steel Corporation British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and cultur ...

, which inherited the additional tinplate works at

Ebbw Vale Steelworks Ebbw Vale Steelworks was an integrated steel mill located in Ebbw Vale, South Wales. Developed from 1790, by the late 1930s it had become the largest steel mill in Europe. It was nationalised after World War II. As the steel industry changed to ...

. By 1970, Felindre works employed 2,500 people and was producing 490,000 tonnes of tinplate per annum. Having already closed the tinplate works at Port Talbot, on review of the three remaining tinplate plants within its South Wales division, in December 1980 it was decided to close the site at Felindre. In March 1981, 1,300 people were made redundant, though 138 were found jobs at Trostre, leaving 768 on site. Production was run down until 1989, when another 108 were given jobs at Trostre. The grounds of the former

steelworks A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel. It may be an integrated steel works carrying out all steps of steelmaking from smelting iron ore to rolled product, but may also be a plant where steel semi-fini ...

played host to the

National Eisteddfod The National Eisteddfod of Wales ( Welsh: ') is the largest of several eisteddfodau that are held annually, mostly in Wales. Its eight days of competitions and performances are considered the largest music and poetry festival in Europe. Competito ...

2006.

Sport

In 2006 Felindre was part of the

World Rally Championship The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is an international rallying series owned and governed by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, FIA. Inaugurated in 1973, it is the oldest FIA world championship after Formula One. E ...

servicing the rally cars whilst they compete in the Welsh Rally, a round of the (WRC) World Rally Championship. For 2007 the site moved to the Swansea SA1 area.

Notable people

* Air Vice Marshal Meredith Thomas, CSI, CBE, DFC, AFC (1892–1984), senior RAF commander in WWII and flying ace in WWI * Alan Jones (born 1938), cricketer, played 645

First-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

matches

Future plans

A new

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

is planned near the former Felindre works site and Junction 46 of the

M4 Motorway The M4, originally the London-South Wales Motorway, is the third longest motorway in the United Kingdom, running from west London to southwest Wales. The English section to the Severn Bridge was constructed between 1961 and 1971; the Welsh ele ...

Notes

External links