The old ecclesiastical name for the parish was Llanfihangel Ynys Afan, which translates into English as The Church dedicated to St Michael standing in the pasture lands of Afan.
There was a strong Christian tradition in this area dating from the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries through the influence of Welsh Saints such as Dyfrig, Teilo and Dewi.
From papal bulls (letters) sent in 1180 from the monks of Margam Abbey (est. 1147) to Rome there was a church dedicated to St Michael in Ynysafan. This Church would have been linked with Rome until the act of Reformation in 1538.
By 1660 the church building comprised of the tower (no steeple) a nave area, and a large porch. This did not change very much for the next one hundred and fifty years.
A
new type of worker stared to arrive in the parish when iron ore deposits
were found on the Foel and Mynydd y Gaer around 1810. Samuel Fothergill
Letsom arrived in 1812 and he opened collieries and built two furnaces to
smelt the iron ore. As the works expanded so did the work force and all
was well for a time but his plans proved to costly and having over spent
and with bankruptcy knocking at his door he was forced to leave the parish
in 1819.
Two Cornishmen, John Vigurs and Leonard Smith joined forces and accepted the challenge to revitalise the works in Cwmafan in 1920. Their work here bore fruit and in 1830 they moved their tinworks from Ynys y Gerwn to Cwmafan and in 1834 added a chemical works. The thriving works attracted many new workers to Cwmafan this in itself was to prove a problem a little while later.
The partnership of Vigurs and Smith ended in 1835. A new company called Vigurs & Co. took over the Cwmafan enterprises with John Vigurs as manager and during 1835 he built a Copper Works and a horse drawn tramway to carry its products to the new Port Talbot Docks the first consignment being shipped in 1838. He also opened a truck shop (company store). These were outlawed by act of parliament in 1844.
John Vigurs made some improvements to the fabric of the church in his early years here and laying flagstones over the earth floor. He also was responsible for erecting the spire on top of the tower, this work was completed in May 1835. On 8th June that year the spire was struck by lightening which destroyed the top seven feet of it, and continued its flow to earth down the tower ripping open the lathe and plaster inside the church and damaging two seats on the North side of the aisle.
John Vigurs left Cwmafan for his Cornish home in 1838.
In
1841 the works became The English Copper Co. a subsidiary of the Governors
and Company of the Copper Miners in England, and a period of prosperity
returned to Cwmafan.
But by 1848 the works were in financial trouble and were taken over by the Bank of England, the new title being The Governor and Company of the Bank of England. The bank placed one John (William?) Biddulph an accountant, as their representative manager to supervise the Cwmafan works, a move which was to have a substantial impact on the church.
New workers continued to arrive placing an even greater strain on what was a poor supply of fresh water and inadequate drainage which were already causing deaths to occur, and in 1849 a bad outbreak of cholera forced the Vicar Rev William Thomas and the church authorities to seek permission from the Church Commissioners to extend the existing burial ground around the church and to the North of the railway line. Biddulph also petitioned the Commissioners and their requests were granted. The new sections being opened in 1850.
On Easter Monday 5th April 1850 at a vestry held in this church John Biddulph Esq. of Coed Park was appointed Vicar’s Warden and Thomas Jones of Nant y Bar Abercregan was appointed Peoples Warden.
Biddulph was very unhappy with the state of the church building which was proving to be inadequate for the numbers wishing to attend services so he wrote again to the Church Commissioners asking for the church to be renovated and enlarged this letter was supported by a letter from the Bishop of Llandaff. The Commissioners agreed to the work being carried out and gave £100 towards the £900 estimated cost. Biddulph then set about raising the balance of the money from the directors of the Cwmafan works and the Governors of the Bank of England.
Architects
Messer’s Pritchard & Seddon were appointed to
oversee the project
but in many instances were ignored by Biddulph.
With production at an all time low in Cwmafan works men were redirected to work on the renovation work in the church. It was decided to enlarge the Nave arch this caused the wall to collapse and it had to be rebuilt at extra cost since the work was not in the original specification.
The whole North wall was removed as were the ancient grave stones that were in the way of the expansion of the church and some were used as a fillet at the base of the new walls where they remain today.
Instead of placing stone pillars as a central structure between the two aisles the builders decided to replace them with five wooden pillars from Margam wood, each pillar is carved from the trunk of a tree
The new East window in the Chancel, a new communion set and the seating in the Chancel and Nave were the gifts of the Mr. & Mrs. Biddulph.
Renovations were completed by April 1851 and the church reopened on Friday 16th May 1851. The whole job from start to finish took some ten months it transformed the small whitewashed building that had stood for 600 years in more or less its original form into the Victorian structure we know today.
Biddulph, though, led a repressive regime in the works so it was left to Edward Roberts the Zion minister to lead the opposition he wrote to the London Newspapers in mid June 1852 the Biddulphs left Cwmafan for Swansea never to return.