English: Neath Abbey (Abaty Nedd), Glamorgan, April 1972. Built 1129 in Norman style by Richard de Granville, one of the Twelve Knights of Glamorgan, for Savigniac monks (who were later absorbed by the Cistercian Order) from Normandy. The largest abbey in Wales when built. Ravaged by Welsh uprisings in the 13th Century. Dissolved 1539, it became a mansion (passing to Sir John Herbert in 1600) until abandoned in the mid-17th Century. In the 18th Century, some of the buildings were used as a copper smelter and an iron foundry but gradually the site became buried by industrial waste! The ownership of the site passed to the Rice family. In the 1920’s Walter FitzUryan Rice, the 7th Baron Dynevor had the site excavated and the ruins uncovered, 7,000 tons of slag being removed by hand! Pictured is the Abbot’s House (later the Herbert Mansion).