View from the back of Adam Street in Abertillery, March 2000.

Abertillery (Welsh: Abertyleri) is a town in the county borough of Blaenau Gwent and the traditional county of Monmouthshire in southern Wales, 16 miles north-west of Newport, originally on the Great Western Railway. Its population rose steeply during the period of mining development in South Wales, being 10,846 in the 1891 census and 21,945 ten years later. It lies in the mountainous mining district of Monmouthshire and Glamorganshire, in the valley of the Ebbw Fach, and the population was traditionally employed in the numerous coalmines, ironworks and tinplate works, now defunct. Farther up the same valley are the mining townships of Nantyglo and Blaina.

Abertillery has a traditional-style town centre and several small schools. Today, its population numbers around 11,000. Noted for its unspoilt rural scenery, Abertillery neighbours the small districts of Aberbeeg and Cwmtillery.

Over the past couple of decades the town has been transform from industrial relic into the clean, modernised area it is today - this has largely been achieved due to large amounts of European Union Objective One funding which has helped the town remove unsightly reminders of the industrial past. Many of these areas have been utilised as playing fields, business parks or mixed use land (including the local comprehensive school)

A recent windfarm proposal for the mountainside above the community of Cwmtillery has been revived despite opposition to the initial proposal drawing large support. This included a group tagged SCAM (Save Coity and Mynydd James), which led to the application being removed with Blaenau Gwent County Council before being re-submitted on a much smaller scale. The SCAM group is still active in the opposition to the proposal and holds regular meetings in the local area concerning the subject.

The town's name is pronounced with the emphasis on the penultimate syllable, ie. it rhymes with "Mary," as in a song made popular by Welsh entertainer Ryan Davies: "Blodwen and Mary from Abertillery..."

See also

• Aber and Inver as place-name elements
• Abertillery and District Hospital
• Abertillery RFC

External links

• Abertillery Online
• Cwmtillery.com
• Abertillery RFC
• Abertillery Town Cricket Club
• Abertillery business guide
• Abertillery Comprehensive School
• Abertillery Orpheus Male Choir

References

Wikisource has an original article from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica about:

Abertillery

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Coordinates: 51°44′N, 3°08′W

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