Colwinston

Colwinston is a village in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales. By road the village is located 3.9 miles southeast of the centre of Bridgend and 20.5 miles west of the centre of Cardiff. The population of the village in 2005 was approximately 400. The community covers an area of 746ha. The novelist Agatha Christie was a frequent visitor to the village, where her descendants still live, at the former manor house of Pwllywrach. A new development of 60 houses near the local school began in December 2015, after protests by local residents were overruled by the Vale of Glamorgan Council. Community representatives pointed to regular flooding and said that "adding 64 homes to a village with 130 at the moment can only increase that risk".HistoryThe village is located within half a mile of the A48, which runs along the same route as the Roman road called Via Julia Maritima, which extended from Caerwent in the east to Carmarthen in the west.The Norman St Michael's Church in Colwinston is reputed to have originally been built in 1111. The church was restored in 1879 and suffered a fire in 1971. The 1811 A Topographical Dictionary of The Dominion of Wales by Nicholas Carlisle said of the village:In 1835, the Seion Presbyterian Chapel was built but it closed in 1996; it later became a residential building. In 1843, the Ebenezer Baptist Chapel was established and the building was completed in 1852. The last minister was the Rev A.E. Powell of Balarat, who served at the church between 1905 and 1944 before the church became part of a house.