69) St. Peter's 'Iron' Church, Goytre

There are several things about St. Peter’s, Goytre, which make it an easy choice for me to sketch as one of my 100 faces of Port Talbot. For one thing, it is the only public building of any kind in Goytre. Goytre is a small community about a mile inland from the centre of Port Talbot. For another thing it was actually moved from where it stood previously in Morfa, when Miss Emily Talbot, whose largesse to the people of Port Talbot has already been mentioned in connection with other buildings in the 100, paid to have it re-erected in Goytre, concerned that there was no place of worship in Goytre itself. The main reason, though, is that the walls of the church are constructed from galvanised metal, which somehow seems remarkably appropriate, bearing in mind the importance of the steel industry to the development of the town. The church, opened on this site in 1915, was renovated in the early years of the 21st century, and reopened in 2003. When I made this sketch it was looking a bit tatty and a bit sorry for itself. Shame.