Dunvant (, and ) is a suburban district and

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

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 ...

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 ...

, and falls within the Dunvant ward. It is situated in a valley some 4.5 miles west of Swansea city centre. The population as of the 2011 census was 4,383. It adjoins the area of Killay.

History

Dunvant started out as a small village based around the

coal industry Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

. The area between Dunvant and

Gowerton Gowerton ( ) is a large village and community, about northwest of Swansea city centre, Wales. Gowerton is often known as the gateway to the Gower Peninsula. Gowerton's original name was Ffosfelin. The village falls within the Gowerton electora ...

was once quite heavily industrialised. with four nearby collieries Killan, Bishwell, Bryn Mawr and Dunvant. Bishwell and Bryn Mawr to the south of

were short-lived and closed in the 1870s. However, the

collieries Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extrac ...

in Dunvant have a longer history. Dunvant closed again in 1914. Killan ceased operations in 1925 following the disaster of 1924 in which five men were killed. At its peak it employed 900 men. Other industry included the Penlan (Dunvant)

Brickworks A brickworks, also known as a brick factory, is a factory for the manufacturing of bricks, from clay or shale. Usually a brickworks is located on a clay bedrock (the most common material from which bricks are made), often with a clay pit, quar ...

and

Quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

which although long since derelict is now an area of conservation and ecological diversity. Development of this part of the

South Wales Coalfield The South Wales Coalfield () extends across Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Merthyr Tydfil, Caerphilly, Blaenau Gwent and Torfaen. It is rich in coal deposits, especially in the South Wales ...

was due to the proximity of the Central Wales Line, which first opened to passengers in 1867 taking people from Swansea Victoria station via Blackpill through to

and beyond. At its peak, the railway carried up to 80 trains a day including express trains to

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in Shropshire (district), Shropshire, England. It is sited on the River Severn, northwest of Wolverhampton, west of Telford, southeast of Wrexham and north of Hereford. At the 2021 United ...

. Houses in the area sprung up in the form of ribbon development along the roads leading to the area in the early 1920s and 1930s. However, it was in the 1960s that larger housing estates appeared, creating the sub-urban area forming Dunvant today.

Governance

Dunvant had its own

community council A community council is a public representative body in Great Britain. In England they may be statutory parish councils by another name, under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, or they may be non-statutory bodies. ...

, until it was dissolved in 2006. Until 2022 Dunvant was an

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected t ...

to Swansea Council. Effective from the 2022 local elections it was merged with neighbouring Killay North and Killay South to become 'Dunvant and Killay', electing three county councillors.

Education

Dunvant has two Primary Schools, Pen-y-Fro Primary situated on Priors Crescent (previously named Dyfnant Primary) and Dunvant School. Dunvant School opened to primary and secondary pupils in 1877 under the headship of Mr John Roach. The school replaced an earlier school in Killay. As the school expanded, the original buildings were insufficient and a number of temporary buildings were provided. The infants school originally operated from a corrugated iron building known as the Tin Shack until a new building was built in 1966 to the north of the junior school. The Tin Shack survived as part of the junior school until it was demolished in the mid 1980s. In 1969, the new Olchfa School opened and many of the staff and older pupils transferred to the new school, with buildings belonging to the Dunvant Secondary School being transferred to the junior school. Even with the new infants school and secondary school, accommodation at Dunvant became overcrowded due to the continued expansion of the large housing estates at Derlwyn and Broadmead. The overcrowding was alleviated in 1976 by the opening of the new Hendrefoilan Primary School in Killay. In 2006, Dunvant Infant and Dunvant Junior Schools merged to form Dunvant Primary School. Many of the temporary buildings on the junior school site have now been removed, and a programme of building works is under way to bring the remaining buildings up to a modern standard.

Sport and leisure

Rugby union club Dunvant RFC is based in the village. Dunvant Male Choir is the longest-running male voice choir in Wales, having been founded in 1895. The Clyne Valley Cycle Track part of

National Cycle Network The National Cycle Network (NCN) was established to encourage cycling and walking throughout the United Kingdom, as well as for the purposes of bicycle touring. It was created by the charity Sustrans who were aided by a £42.5 million N ...

Route 4 runs through this village.

Notable residents

*Sir Granville Beynon (1914-1996), physicist. * John Ormond (1923–90), poet and film-maker. * Heather Nicholson (1967- ), animal rights activist *

Ceri Richards Ceri Giraldus Richards (6 June 1903 – 9 November 1971) was a Welsh painter, print-maker and maker of reliefs. Biography Richards was born in 1903 in the village of Dunvant, near Swansea, the son of Thomas Coslett Richards and Sarah Ri ...

(1903-1971), artist, acknowledged as Wales' most important artist of the mid-twentieth century, went to Dunvant infants and junior school. * David John Thomas (1879-1925), Wales international rugby player

Churches in Dunvant

St Martin's
* Ebenezer
St. Joachim and St. Anne Catholic Church

Dunvant Gospel Hall

References

External links

Dunvant Male Choir

Dunvant Rugby Club

The History of Dunvant by David Morgan
{{Authority control Communities in Swansea Districts of Swansea