Home - St Brides Major Community Council

Welcome to St. Brides Major Community Council

The St. Brides Major Community Council covers the St Brides Major, Castle Upon Alun, Southerndown and Ogmore By Sea areas.

St Brides Major provides a number of services to local residents. These include control of the burial ground at St Bridget's Church. Consideration for planning applications concerns received are passed to the Vale of Glamorgan Planning Department, and other local issues/concerns are discussed and acted upon.

In addition, concerns from members of the public are conveyed to the Vale of Glamorgan Council, if they can not be resolved by the Community Council. We are always interested in the general well being of the area and its residents, and with this in mind we welcome any suggestions as to how this can be maintained and improved.

Ogmore by Sea

Ogmore-by-Sea is about 3 miles [4.5 kms] south of Bridgend and about 20 miles west of Cardiff. The beaches look out on Tusker Rock, and have sand at low-tide and sharp rocks at high-tide.

The River Ogmore estuary is flanked by Ogmore beach on one side and the dunes of Merthyr Mawr on the other. The estuary makes bathing unsafe from most of the beach. The rocky shoreline is well known as a rock climbing location. It is an interesting place geologically with a variety of fossils clearly visible

St Brides Major

St. Brides Major (Welsh: Sant-y-brid) is a village within the community also called St Brides Major in the Vale of Glamorgan in Wales.

The village is located approximately 1.5 mi from the Glamorgan Heritage Coast. It is connected by bus to the nearby towns Llantwit Major and Bridgend 3 miles (5 km).

Southerndown

Southerndown is a village in southern Wales to the southwest of Bridgend, in St Brides Major community, close to Llantwit Major and Ogmore-by-Sea.

It is mostly known for its beach which backs Dunraven Bay (Welsh: Bae Dwnrhefn), which is a popular tourist destination during the summer months and since 1972 has been part of a Heritage Coast and is part of the Southerndown Coast SSSI.

Castle upon Alun

Castle Upon Alun is well known in the area for its Ford at Pont-yr-Brown with its stepping stones.
Castle-upon-Alun Farm was once a thatched farmhouse and it may have been the Home Farm of an old castle (hence the name of the area).

Several stone arches and relics of an old building survive and it is thought that a Welsh castle of pre Norman times could have stood in the vicinity. Graves of the first century Roman-Celtic period containing spears and daggers have been unearthed in the area.