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KENFIG CASTLE. By ARTHUR J. RICHARD, M.A. [The excavation of Kenfig Castle was undertaken for the Aberafan and Margam District Historical Society. The writer takes this opportunity of acknowledging his indebtedness to Captain A. Talbot-Fletcher, the Trustees of the Margam Estate and the Burgesses of Kenfig for permission to dig; to Drs. Mortimer Wheeler and Cyril Fox for valuable advice; to Mr. D. Chas. Davies for surveying the site to the senior boys of the Port Talbot Secondary School for so diligently helping with the digging and to all who have rendered the work possible by contributing to the fund.] KENFIG CASTLE stands in a district replete with historical monuments; on Margam Mountain are to be seen Bronze Age tumuli, the celebrated Bodvoc Stone and earthworks of uncertain date but bearing traces of Roman influences milliary stones indicate the direction of the so-called Via Julia Maritima at Margam Abbey are sculptured stones and crosses dating from the tenth century, and legends associated with the Ogam or Pompey Stone and Kenfig Pool tell of the Goidelic occupation. The castle itself stands on the Glamorgan sea-plain about three miles south-east of Port Talbot. The name Kenfig has been variously interpreted as Cefn y Figen "-the ridge above the swamp, Cen for Pen y figen-the head of the swamp, and the land in the bend of the river Ken The first two are Celtic origins, the last Scandinavian. Dr. Paterson, whose researches into the place-names of Glamorgan- shire have led him to believe that there existed an extensive Danish settlement along the Glamorgan coast and Tir Iarll, makes the interesting suggestion that the 1 Gray, Buried City of Kenfig," p. 34; Arch. Camb., 1922, p. 48.