Tonna ( ) is the name of a
village and a coterminous electoral ward and community in Neath Port Talbot, Wales
.
Today it
is essentially a suburb of the town of Neath
. Once
mainly
agricultural fields, the name
derives from the
archaic Welsh tonnau, meaning
grassland and not, as is sometimes assumed, the
modern
Welsh for "waves". Some areas
of
pasture remain.
Ivy Tower
One of these fields houses the
Ivy Tower, a
folly built by the wealthy Mackworth family in the
1740s as a
ballroom to entertain their
guests.
Although now largely ruined, the Ivy Tower is
still the most visible and distinctive landmark in the Neath
Valley. The nearby
Moss House Cascades in the
Gnoll Estate, built by the Mackworths around the same time
as the Ivy Tower, have recently been restored and are popular
family attractions.
Immediately between Tonna and the adjoining
parish of Llanilltud ("Llantwit-juxta-Neath") is a
cottage once occupied by the Welsh born
engineer and
naturalist
Alfred Russel Wallace, who had
arrived at his theory of
evolution
independently of
Charles Darwin, with
whom he later corresponded. Eventually Wallace and Darwin jointly
presented the first paper on
Natural
Selection to the
Linnean
Society.
Tonna is the birthplace of international
soprano singer
Della
Jones and classical
pianist Gordon Back. Tonna was also the birthplace of
Martyn Davies, a talented and the first captain to lead
Neath RFC to win the
WRU Challenge Cup in their Centenary Year,
1971.
Government and politics
The
electoral ward of Tonna falls
within the
parliamentary
constituency of
Neath. The ward consists
of a small built-up area of Tonna village to the northwest with
rest of the ward consisting of woodland and pasture.
Tonna is bounded by
the wards of Aberdulais
to the north; Resolven
to the
northeast; Pelenna
to the
southeast; Cimla
and Neath North
to the southwest; and Cadoxton
to the west.In the
2008 local council
elections, the electorate turnout was 42.05%. The results were:
| Candidate |
Party |
Votes |
Status |
| Bill Walters |
Independent |
616 |
Independent re-elected |
| Kelvin George |
Labour |
190 |
|
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