13) Ffwrdwyllt House, Commercial Road

If for no other reason than this, I would have wanted to sketch Ffrwdwyllt House because, to an English person, it has a name which manages to be very long and have no vowels at the same time. I'm joking. For me this is a great example of civic architecture. I don't know exactly when it was built, but it has that heavy, self important late Victorian/Edwardian air about it. Engraved around the middle of the façade it makes it clear that this was built as a council building. Out of interest the name comes from the stream which runs just a few yards from the house, which I'd guess is one of the tributaries of the Afan, and it stands on the same road as Taibach Library.