View source for Skewen

{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2019}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2025}}
{{Infobox UK place
| country                  = Wales
| welsh_name               = Sgiwen
| official_name            = Skewen
| static_image_name        = Skewen in 2004.jpg
| static_image_caption     = A view over Skewen
| unitary_wales            = [[Neath Port Talbot]]
| lieutenancy_wales        = [[West Glamorgan]]
| constituency_westminster = [[Neath and Swansea East]]
| post_town                = NEATH
| postcode_district        = SA10
| postcode_area            = SA
| dial_code                = 01792
| os_grid_reference        = SS727974
| population               = 8,500
| london_distance          =
| cardiff_distance         = 
| coordinates              = {{coord|51.6609|-3.8399|display=inline,title}} 
}}

'''Skewen''' ({{langx|cy|Sgiwen}}) is a village within the [[county borough]] of [[Neath Port Talbot]], in Wales. The village is served by [[Skewen railway station]] and has its own [[Skewen RFC|rugby club]].

==History==
Skewen was once an industrial village.  There were a number of [[Coal mining|collieries]] around the village. The Crown and Mines Royal Copper Works and the Cheadle and Neath Abbey Ironworks were once important industrial sites which stood close by.  Old top-loading [[blast furnace]]s can also be seen at [[Neath Abbey]].  To the south of Skewen lies the village of [[Llandarcy]], the site of the United Kingdom's first [[Llandarcy Oil Refinery|oil refinery]]. The site of this former oil refinery is now being developed as an urban village called [[Coed Darcy]], a development which was promoted at its start by the [[Charles, Prince of Wales#Built environment|Prince of Wales's Foundation for the Built Environment]].{{cn|date=September 2021}}

==Monuments of interest==
The ruins of [[Neath Abbey]], a former [[Cistercian]] [[monastery]], are now in the care of [[Cadw]].<ref name=ggat>{{Watprn|GGAT|00585w|title=Neath Abbey}}</ref>  On [[Mynydd Drumau]] to the north of the village is an ancient standing stone known as the Carreg Bica (or 'Maen Bradwen').<ref>https://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/6201/maen-bredwan</ref>

==Notable people==
*The village is the birthplace of Sir [[Samuel Thomas Evans]] (1859–1918), British judge and politician who was appointed [[Solicitor General for England and Wales|Solicitor-General]] in 1908 and became the [[President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division]] in 1910.
*Skewen is also the birthplace of the singer [[Bonnie Tyler]] and Welsh composer [[David John de Lloyd]] (1883–1948).
*Comedian [[Eddie Izzard]] lived in the village for a short time during childhood.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/film-news/eddie-izzard-hates-welsh-hard-13643411 |title = This is why Eddie Izzard hates it when the Welsh get a hard time from 'casual racist banter' – Wales Online}}</ref> 
* The grandparents of the American entrepreneur [[Howard Hughes]] are believed to have lived in Skewen in the 1930s.{{cn|date=July 2025}}
* The murderer, Elizabeth "Betty" Maude Jones, née Baker (1926–?), was born in Skewen. In October 1944, she and an American paratrooper named Karl Hulten (1922–1944), sometimes branded "the Blackout Bonnie and Clyde", carried out a series of crimes that culminated in the [[Murder in English law|murder]] of a London taxi driver. Both she and Hulten were [[Capital punishment in the United Kingdom|sentenced to death]], but Jones was reprieved by the Home Secretary, [[Herbert Morrison]].{{cn|date=July 2025}}

==Nearest places==
*[[Birchgrove, Swansea|Birchgrove]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://www.welshcoalmines.co.uk/GlamWest/SkewenMain.htm Skewen Colliery]
*[https://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=2764507 www.geograph.co.uk : photos of Skewen and surrounding area]

{{Neath Port Talbot}}

{{authority control}}

[[Category:Villages in Neath Port Talbot]]