Tonna, Neath


Tonna is the name of a village and community in Neath Port Talbot, Wales, located to the north-east of Neath.
[Image:Ivy Tower near Tonna in 2007.jpg|left|thumb|380px|Ivy Tower]
Immediately between Tonna and the adjoining parish of Llanilltud is a cottage once occupied by the Welsh-born engineer and naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who had arrived at his theory of evolution independently of Charles Darwin, with whom he later corresponded. Eventually Wallace and Darwin jointly presented the first paper on Natural Selection to the Linnean Society.
The village's rugby union team is Tonna RFC.

Toponymy

Once mainly agricultural fields, the name derives from the archaic Welsh tonnau, meaning lea or grassland and not, as is sometimes assumed, the modern Welsh for "waves". Some areas of pasture remain.

Blaen Cwm Bach Roman Camp

On the hillside to the southeast of Tonna is the earthwork evidence of a large rectangular Roman camp. Known at Blaen Cwm Bach Camp, this was a temporary stopping-place built by a Roman army unit on the move, and at 880 metres from east to west, and 300 metres wide, it is the largest such camp in Wales. A bank and ditch was cut into the rocky ground, on the top of a broad ridge on the hill above Tonna. It is no longer a continuous bank but it is uncertain if the gaps were never built or have been eroded away. In the northwest corner of the camp is the earthwork evidence of an Iron Age enclosure, which predates the Roman Camp and would have been within its boundary banks. The whole camp area is a scheduled monument.

Government and politics

The electoral ward of Tonna falls within the parliamentary constituency of Neath. The ward consists of a small built-up area of Tonna village to the northwest with rest of the ward consisting of woodland and pasture. Tonna is bounded by the wards of Aberdulais to the north; Resolven to the northeast; Pelenna to the southeast; Cimla and Neath North to the southwest; and Cadoxton to the west.
In the 2022 local council elections, two councillors were elected to Neath Port Talbot Council from the combined Resolven and Tonna Ward. The electorate turnout was 44%. The results were: