Cwm Tawe Ministry Area is home to several churchyards and cemeteries. This page should help you understand how our churchyards and cemeteries operate, where burials are available in our Ministry Area, and what upkeep to our grounds we can currently perform.
Our churchyards and cemeteries have no facilities for rubbish disposal. Please take your rubbish with you when you leave.
General Information
Our cemeteries belong to the Church in Wales, and are not Local Authority cemeteries. Church in Wales Cemeteries work differently to Local Authority Cemeteries and other Burial Grounds in a few ways:
- It is not possible to reserve a plot in our churchyards and cemeteries before funeral arrangements begin to be made. Plots can only be booked after the individual to be buried has passed away
- Though a burial fee is paid, the grave does not become the property of the family. Graves, and the human remains in them, are the property of the Church in Wales
- The erection of memorial stones is subject to compliance with the Churchyard Regulations
- Human remains are buried on the understanding that they are to rest in peace, and requests for the exhumation and re-interment of remains is generally refused by the Church in Wales
Due to financial difficulties which have increased with time, Church in Wales Churches are prone to closures. As you will find below, some of the Church buildings attached to our churchyards are closed. This does not affect access to the churchyards, which remain the property of the Church in Wales.
Ashes may not be scattered in Church in Wales churchyards and cemeteries, and Church in Wales Clergy are not allowed to scatter ashes.
In recent years, we’ve experienced a decrease in burials (which means a decrease in the fees which help us maintain our grounds) and in church people, as well as a decrease in people living in the locality with loved ones buried in a local churchyard. This means we don’t have the resources to maintain our churchyards as well as we would like to. Please understand that we are doing our best in very difficult circumstances, and our grounds can’t be perfectly maintained.
Our grounds can date back hundreds of years. As such, access to our churchyards for vehicles or those using mobility aids is often difficult, and we are unfortunately limited in what we can do to improve this as graves have historically been laid at the edges of driveways and pathways.
In our Ystalyfera and Godrergraig churchyards, the Friends of Ystalyfera Churchyards group fundraises to maintain our grounds, and Churchyard Clean Up Sessions are sometimes organised. We’re hoping to extend these ideas across the whole Ministry Area, so that we can raise the much-needed funds for grounds maintenance, and accept offers of help to keep our grounds in a better condition. If you would like to know more about this, please do contact us.
If you have an interest in Family History Research, please bear in mind that whilst Burial Registers are kept, they are not available for public examination, and extensive plans of where people are buried was not the practice in previous generations. Searches of the Burial Registers are subject to a fee set by the Church in Wales.
Our Churchyards and Cemeteries
Making our way down the Swansea Valley, the first Church in Wales churchyard is at St John the Baptist Church Callwen.
Next, there is the churchyard at the former Church of St David Abercrave. This church is now closed and building has now been sold, alongside a small portion of land near the gates at the East of the premises, and another portion at the West end, which are no longer accessible to the public. The churchyard itself remains open.
Our next churchyard is at Capel Coelbren. Here we are committed to promoting biodiversity, and some portions of the churchyard are being left to grow wild to complement the vista of hedges, fields, and forestry in the distance. We are working with the Local Authority to further improve our biodiversity in this churchyard.
Further South, we have a large churchyard in the grounds of St Cynog Church Ystradgynlais. This churchyard is currently almost full.
In the grounds of the now-closed Church of St David Ystalyfera, there is a small churchyard with some space for the burial of ashes. Due to the layout of the burial ground and the need to conserve space, there are only 12” by 12” plots available here. Please be aware that the Church building itself is expected to go on sale in the near future.
Also in Ystalyfera is Alltygrug Cemetery, just off Alltygrug Farm Road. This cemetery is now full, with no space for new graves to be dug. Burials may only take place in existing graves if there is room for relatives of those already buried in these graves. The Ministry Area Council is in the process of having Alltygrug Cemetery officially deemed as closed by the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon. For reasons of site security, the Local Authority has taken over access arrangements. Those wishing to take vehicles to the cemetery itself, rather than walking, will need to make arrangements with the Local Authority, and will need to bear in mind that access may not be at their convenience. The barrier at the entrance of this cemetery is property of the Local Authority, and matters to do with the access road to the cemetery should also be addressed to the Local Authority.
Nearby there is the Holy Trinity Churchyard, located on Church Road, Godrergraig. Holy Trinity Church, which is now demolished, stood on this site. In recent years, with landslips in the area, the Church building as well as the top part of the churchyard have been deemed unsafe by the Local Authority, with a high risk here of further landslides. Should there be a landslide in the area, some of the debris may reach into the churchyard from the hill above. While the churchyard remains open, please be aware of this risk.
Ystalyfera and Godrergraig have an active Friends of Ystalyfera Churchyard group, who fundraise to maintain the grounds in this area. Churchyard Clean Up Sessions are organised here in the warmer months of the year. If you would like to know more about these, please contact Canon Tim Hewitt or Rev’d. Sarah Harris for further details. If you would like to be on the mailing list for this group, you will need to fill in a consent form and return it to us (this is due to General Data Protection Regulations). Please get in touch with us to ask for a consent form if you would like to be on this mailing list.
Further down the valley, Pontardawe is home to several churchyards and cemeteries. St Peter Church Pontardawe has its own churchyard, which is currently almost full. The now-closed churches of St Mary’s Ynysmeudwy and All Saints Pontardawe also have their own churchyards, which are still in use.
In Pontardawe there is also the churchyard belonging to the now-closed St Ciwg Church Llangiwg. The churchyard is still in use and is situated next to Pontardawe Golf Club. This churchyard is not maintained by the Church in Wales; a local group, Friends of Llangiwg Churchyard, maintains this churchyard.
The two southernmost churches in our Ministry Area, St Michael Trebanos and St Mary Clydach, each have their own grounds. However these are not churchyards, and no burials take place here.
Lastly, in Clydach, there is a churchyard attached to the former church of St John Church, next to the Mond Nickel Works. There is a great deal of overgrowth in this churchyard, and in the future we are hoping to approach this in a way which makes the cemetery tidier and encourages biodiversity and wildlife, as the area backs onto Clydach’s portion of Swansea Canal. We are hopeful that a community project could be established to help us achieve this. If you are interested in helping us here, please get in touch with Canon Tim Hewitt.
Cwmtawe Churches 