Garnant
Garnant
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 Garnant
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| Garnant shown within Carmarthenshire | |
| Population | 1,965 (2001) |
| OS grid reference | SN687130 |
| Community | |
| Principal area | |
| Ceremonial county | |
| Country | Wales |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | AMMANFORD |
| Postcode district | SA18 |
| Dialling code | 01269 |
| Police | Dyfed-Powys |
| Fire | Mid and West Wales |
| Ambulance | Welsh |
| EU Parliament | Wales |
| UK Parliament | |
| Welsh Assembly | |
Garnant is a Welsh mining village in the valley of the River Amman in Carmarthenshire, north of Swansea. Like the neighbouring village of Glanamman it experienced a coal-mining boom in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but the last big colliery closed in 1936 and coal has been extracted fitfully since then. The village has the only Commissioners' church built in southwest Wales, traditionally a Methodist region.
The location of Garnant and Glanamman was known as Cwmamman ("Amman valley") before coal was discovered; until the 18th century it was a remote wilderness with just a few farms and rough mountain roads. Mining appears to have started at Brynlloi in Glanamman in 1757 and small coal workings proliferated in the first half of the 19th century. The lease to "Garnant Colliery" was offered in an advert of 1830, which was probably at the border of Garnant and Gwaun-cae-gurwen near the main road.
The arrival of the Llanelly Railway in 1840 meant that coal could be exported on an industrial scale through Llanelli docks. The railway's decision to build two stations at Garnant (originally called Amman Valley) and Glanamman encouraged the two halves of Cwmamman to develop their own identity, as did the construction of Christchurch in Garnant at about the same time. Taking its name from the emblem of the Dynevor family, the "Raven" colliery in Garnant was operating by 1854 and opened a new shaft in 1907. By World War I it was employing 450 men, but it closed in 1936 after an industrial dispute. The site is now the Raven Industrial Park. Coal mining has continued sporadically since then, most notably at an open-cast mine which extracted 2,000 tons per week between 1988 and 1992. The site is now the Garnant Park golf club.
Cwmamman, the old name for the location of Glanamman and Garnant, was revived for the modern urban council covering the two villages which now have much smaller populations than in their heyday at the turn of the 20th century. Garnant is in the unitary authority of Carmarthenshire. Rhodri Glyn Thomas of Plaid Cymru currently represents the village at the Welsh Assembly in the constituency of Carmarthen East and Dinefwr. He had a majority of 8,000 votes over Labour's Kevin Madge in the Welsh Assembly Elections 2007.
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Wikipedia