BRYNMAWR  , a

market town of Brecknockshire, Wales, 141 M . S.E. of Brecknock and 156 m. from London by rail . Pop, of urban district (1901) 6833 . It is on the London & North-Western and Rhymney joint railway connecting Rhymney and Abergavenny, being also a junction for a branch line to Pontypool via Blaenavon, and the terminus of the Great Western line from Newport via Nantyglo . The town owes its origin to the development during the first half of the 19th century of iron-works at the upper ends of the valleys that converge in its neighbourhood, its site being previously known as Waun Helygen (Willow-tree Common) . The Nantyglo ironworks afford occupation to large numbers of the inhabitants of Brynmawr . Both coal and iron ore were formerly worked, but the coal is exhausted and the ore unsuitable for modern processes . Brynmawr was formed into an ecclesiastical parish in 1875 out of portions of the civil parishes of Llanelly and Llangattock . In 1894 this was formed into an urban district, which was enlarged in loco by the addition of a portion of the parish of Aberystruth in Monmouthshire, the whole being at the same time consolidated into a civil parish .