As at the 2nd January 2025, Beddau Ward has an electorate of 3,149, represented by 4 Community Councillors. Tynant Ward has an electorate of 2426, represented by 3 Community Councillors.
At Borough Council level the wards are represented by 2 members. Cllr Julie Barton and Cllr Richard Yeo
History
Beddau means “graves” and allegedly felons used to be hanged from a beech tree which stood at Beddau Square. The bodies were then buried beneath the crossroads, meaning those travelling the roads would walk over their graves. Starting off as a rural community, Beddau’s fortunes changed from 1909 when the first turf was cut for the Cwm Colliery.
The Cwm Colliery went on to be one of the biggest pits in South Wales and in 1912 the building of houses in Tynant started to house miners who came from all areas of the country to work in the pit. In 1957 the coking works opened and expansion in the area continued. The National Coal Board closed the colliery in 1986, and Cwm Coke works ceased production in 2002, and has lain desolate ever since. However, plans are in for 851 new houses at the site. The Grade II listed cooling towers will be retained as a permanent reminder of the history of the area.
Castellau
Approximately three quarters of a mile north west of Beddau is the rural district of Castellau, which means castles or fortifications. This is a particularly beautiful spot with many footpaths. There are farms here and there and an imposing mansion house dating back to the sixteenth century, once the ancestral home of the Treharne family. A short distance from the mansion gates on the corner where a road turns over the common stands a house which was until fairly recently an Inn which was built in the sixteenth century. Across the road on the other corner is a beautiful old Welsh Independent Chapel built in 1843.