Port Talbot Steelworks

Port Talbot Steelworks is an integrated steel production plant in Port Talbot, West Glamorgan, Wales, capable of producing nearly 5 million tonnes of steel slab per annum, making it the largest of all three major steel plants in the UK and one of the largest in Europe. The majority of the slab is rolled on-site at Port Talbot and at the Newport Llanwern site to make a variety of steel strip products. The remainder is processed at other Tata Steel plants or sold in slab form. The works covers a large area of land which dominates the south of the town with its two blast furnaces and steel production plant buildings being major landmarks visible from both the M4 motorway and the South Wales Main Line when passing through the town.

The site at Margam is made up of a number of plants across a large site, developed since 1901.

The original works were built by Gilbertson, and situated south of Port Talbot railway station. Constructed in 1901-5, the works was named after Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot of Margam Castle, the principal sponsor of the developments at Port Talbot docks, which had opened in 1837.

Closed in 1961, the site was demolished in 1963. The General Offices housed Port Talbot magistrates' court, until 2012, but the rest of the site is an industrial estate.

Steelmaking at the Port Talbot complex began with the Margam Iron and Steel Works, completed in 1923/6.

Abbey Works was planned in 1947, but today is correctly termed Tata Steel Strip Products UK Port Talbot Works. It is believed to be named after the Cistercian Margam Abbey that used to be on the site - a small amount of the original building still stands (protected) within the site that survived the dissolution of the monasteries. Several steel manufacturers in South Wales pooled their resources to form the Steel Company of Wales, to construct a modern integrated steelworks on a site then owned by Guest, Keen and Baldwins. However, political manoeuvring led to tinplate production being retained in its original heartland further west, at two new works in Trostre and Felindre. Opened in 1951, it was fully operational by 1953.

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