Ynystawe
Encyclopedia
Ynystawe is a small village in the City and County of Swansea
Swansea
Swansea is a coastal city and county in Wales. Swansea is in the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county area includes the Gower Peninsula and the Lliw uplands...

 in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, falling in the electoral ward of Morriston
Morriston
Morriston is a community in the City and County of Swansea, Wales and falls within the Morriston ward. Morriston is sometimes referred to as a distinct town , however Morriston never had a town charter, and is now part of the continuous urban area around Swansea, the centre of which lies three...

. It is situated approximately half a mile North of Junction 45 of the M4 motorway, between Ynysforgan
Ynysforgan
Ynysforgan is a village near Swansea, Glamorgan, Wales. It lies just off Junction 45 of the M4 motorway, geographically between Morriston and Ynystawe. The origins of its name are not known for certain but ynys is Welsh for a river-meadow Ynysforgan is a village near Swansea, Glamorgan, Wales. It...

 and Clydach in the lower Swansea Valley
Swansea Valley
The Swansea Valley , one of the South Wales Valleys is the name often given to the valley of the River Tawe area in South Wales, UK. It reaches southwest and south from the Brecon Beacons National Park down to the city of Swansea. Today, administration of the area is divided between the City and...

. The Welsh name Ynystawe/Ynysdawe derives from two words: Ynys, meaning "island" or "river-meadow", and Tawe, the name of the river running through the village.

Geography

The village lies on the western side of the Lower Sansea Valley, occupying a mainly elevated position overlooking the valley floor. The river Tawe is diverted westwards below the village owing to the presence of the Glais moraine. This is a rare crescentic terminal moraine left over from the southern edge of the ice sheet from the last glaciation (approximately 10 000 years ago), and can be seen from the upper parts of the village as a distinctive elevation of the valley floor.

History

In Ynystawe Park there stands a memorial stone to Hopcyn ap Tomos (ap Einion) of Ynystawe (c 1330 – 1408). Tomos was a very learned man who commissioned the compilation of the ‘Llyfr Coch’ (Red Book), which brought together most of the great Welsh literature of the time into a single volume. This included Cymric (Welsh) prose & poetry as well as the Mabinogion romances. The Llyfr Coch is considered to be the most complete and impressive collection of Cymric literatiure, and is currently housed in the University of Oxford’s Bodleian library.

Tomos was also considered to possess prophetic powers. For this reason, he was called to court at Camarthen by Owain Glyndwr in 1403 to predict the outcome of the coming conflict between the Welsh and the English.

Education

Ynystawe Primary School is the only school in the village. It is a small English-medium school which acts primarily as a feeder school for Morriston Comprehensive School. Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

-speaking children are able to attend Welsh-medium primary schools in the neighbouring villages of Clydach and Llansamlet
Llansamlet
Llansamlet is the name of an electoral ward and a coterminous community City and County of Swansea, Wales, UK. Llansamlet does not have a community council....

.

Sport and leisure

The village has one public house named "The Millers Arms", situated on the main road near Ynystawe Park. Ynystawe Cricket and Football Club is a sporting-social club located on the periphery of the village. Ynystawe cricket team won the England & Wales National Village Cricket Championship in 2001. Ynystawe Park is a large open space comprising a children's play area, tennis and basketball courts, bowling green, skateboard ramp, and football & cricket pitches.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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