The South Wales mining village that made Richard Burton a global icon

Telegraph

06-04-2025

The writing is on the wall: 'There is one place you belong to, and in my case it's Pontrhydyfen.' The quote sings out from a mural on the façade of the Miners Arms pub in the former South Wales mining village.
The words are those of the local lad made good; the miner's son who became a Shakespearean actor; the Hollywood star who never forgot his Welsh roots.
This year Pontrhydyfen remembers the centenary of the birth of Richard Burton, who was born Richard Walter Jenkins in the village near Port Talbot in November 1925. The Centenary festival features a programme of events, plus the new tour I've joined to walk in Burton's footsteps. The launch coincides with the April 4 release of a new film, Mr Burton, which focusses on his lesser-known early life before the Hollywood headlines.
Also starring Toby Jones and Lesley Manville, Harry Lawtey plays the young Richard, who was taken under the wing of his schoolteacher, Philip, the eponymous Mr Burton, played by Jones.
Teenage Richard took his teacher's surname after he became his legal guardian. 'Richard was the North Star of Welsh cinema,' says the Cardiff-born film's producer Ed Talfan. 'Making the film made me realise how incredibly hard it must have been to be brought up in poverty yet still find a route out.'
The three-hour tour links two existing walking trails, shuttling between the village of Pontrhydyfen and the Port Talbot suburb of Taibach by coach.
A new interpretation has been added along the route with QR codes to download audio content for self-guided explorers. The starting point, the Miners Arms, is where Richard's parents first met, and the actress Sian Owen, his niece, has a poem to 'Uncle Rich' framed on the wall amongst old family photographs.
Nearby is the Bethel Chapel, now a community café, where thousands gathered after his death for a memorial service, and the terraced house on Penhydd Street where Sian still lives.
It's here, according to popular folklore, that Richard and second wife, Elizabeth Taylor, turned up in a Rolls Royce, the Hollywood starlet asking the family in her newly perfect Welsh, to use the toilet.
At the time, they were amongst the highest paid actors in Hollywood and the original 'It' couple.
Later we headed onto Port Talbot, stopping at the Plaza Cinema community centre, where Richard came to see George Formby films as a young man.
Amongst the memorabilia of Port Talbot's acting talent – Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins and Michael Sheen – tourist guide Griff Harries shared his own memories over coffee in the community cafe.
'I remember stories about him as a child in the Sixties,' he said. 'My parents revered him as a screen idol and now, through my labour-of-love research for these tours, I've come to know the young man.'
The next day, I visited the Richard Burton Archives at Swansea University. The reading room was laid out with a series of family photographs, hand-written diary entries and old film posters, all donated to the university by Richard's widow, Sally Burton.
'Curating his personal effects has shown me his real passion for words and writing. Like his hero, Dylan Thomas, he could also have been a writer,' says Head of Cultural Collections, Sîan Williams.
The university is working on an exhibition of memorabilia to open at a Port Talbot shopping centre later this summer and there are plans for a birthday gala event to mark Richard's birthday in November.
The latter is to be staged at The Orangery at Margam Country Park, the historic estate just outside of Port Talbot, that makes for a fine rural escape from the industrial landscape with walking trails and family activities.
Back in Port Talbot, I visited the school where Richard was taught by Philip Burton, the house where he lived with his elder sister after his mother died, and the public library where he devoured the literary greats – low-key landmarks all overshadowed by the town's looming steelworks.
We finished at Taibach Memorial Park, where the young Richard would have played rugby and climbed trees. 'I've watched the old interviews with Richard and, when you look at the eyes,' adds Griff, 'there's no hint of arrogance. He was one of us.'
Richard Burton died in Switzerland after a brain hemorrhage in 1984, aged 58, the same year as John Lennon.
The diet of three bottles of spirits and 60-odd cigarettes a day finally caught up with the actor who never won an Oscar but was nominated seven times.
He was buried locally, said to have been laid to rest in a red suit with a copy of Dylan Thomas' poems. The memorial at Taibach Memorial Park features one of Richard's own poems which, like the quote from the mural at Miners Arms, suggests you can take the boy out of Wales, but you can't take Wales out of the boy.
'And there were things that made me;
Grew round the core of my young soul,
But I have other worlds for whom to weep;
I shall return no more.'
How to do it
For more information, and to book a tour, see richardburton100.org. The monthly tours are free but are first-come, first-served. There are options too for accessible, signed and Welsh-language tours. The Richard Burton Archives at Swansea University are open to visitors Tue-Thu; swansea.ac.uk/library/richard-burton-archives. Stay in Swansea at the Grand Hotel.