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| Torfaen is a
county borough in South Wales. It is situated in what was near enough the
centre of the traditional county of Monmouthshire. Between 1974 and 1996 it
was a district in the preserved county of Gwent. The name Torfaen is
corrupted Welsh for rock breaker and refers to the river that flows through
the county borough from its source in Blaenavon. The river in question is
now known as the Afon Llwyd (English: grey river). Torfaen borders the city and county borough
of Newport to the south, the county of Monmouthshire to the east and the
county boroughs of Caerphilly and Blaenau Gwent to the west and north-west.
Torfaen, although a relatively small county borough, has a number of notable
landmarks. The area is fairly well urbanised with a
population of around 91,000. Much of the southern parts of the county
borough are now wholly urbanised around the Cwmbran New Town conurbation.
The north of the county borough is greener and retains vast acres of
countryside, especially on the route to Blaenavon. The county town is
Pontypool in the centre of the area. Abersychan is a large suburb of Pontypool, Torfaen in South Wales. It lies in the narrow northern section of the Afon Llwyd valley. Blaenavon is a town and World Heritage Site in south eastern Wales, lying at the source of the Afon Llwyd north of Pontypool. The town lies high on a hillside and has a population of 6,349 people. Cwmbran is a new town in southern Wales, established in the 1950s to provide new employment in the south eastern portion of the South Wales Coalfield. 'Cwmbran' means valley of the crow in the Welsh language. Based around the villages of Old Cwmbran, Pontnewydd, Upper Cwmbran [1], Croesyceiliog, Llantarnam and Llanyrafon, it has grown to house almost 50,000 people within 50 years of its creation. Griffithstown is a large and
affluent suburb of Pontypool in the borough of Torfaen, Wales. It situated
between two other Pontypool suburbs - Pontymoile to the north and Sebastopol
to the south and is within walking distance of Pontypool and Cwmbran and a
short commute from Newport and Cardiff. |
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