The view from the top

I never got round to climbing Mynydd Foel while I was writing Real Port Talbot. It gets a mention in the Cwmafan section of the book of course: the mountain forms the village's northerly backdrop and was crowned with a significant industrial feature until the early 1940s. In the photo above I'm standing on the summit in front of the spot where Stac y Foel used to be. 

Cwmafan was a smoking industrial cauldron in the first half of the 19th century: rolling mills, foundries and the notorious copper works, built between 1835 and 1838, that pumped out noxious fumes from its smelting furnaces. Eventually something was done to try and alleviate the pollution. 

The manager of the copper works, William Brunton, constructed a stone culvert from the works up the side of Mynydd Foel. It was 15 foot wide, 11 foot high and a mile long. At its mouth, on the summit, he built a 30 foot buttressed stack to direct the fumes upwards.

You can still make out the circular base of the Stac and find traces of the copper industry in the green stained stones that are scattered across the summit. And I don't think anyone will mind if you pick up a few as souvenirs. If you're into stones, as I am. I also found my very own (miniature) Stac.

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Cwmafan is a very different place now. No furnace or foundries, no tips, no tangled network of rail and tram lines criss-crossing the village. The mountain slopes are green. But from the summit of Mynydd Foel you can look down towards the coast and the 21st century industrial plain of Port Talbot's steelworks and docks. We move on. But we keep the past with us. 

Source
Brief Historical Surveys of Taibach and Cwmavon, William and Cyril Rees (1972)