At first glance the streets of Coed Darcy look much like any other modern housing estate. Cars line the kerbs. Curtains twitch in upstairs windows. A few are left ajar to let fresh air drift through. It feels settled, ordinary even. Few would guess that this quietly lived-in community stands on ground once dominated by oil tanks, chimneys and heavy industry.

Over 20 years ago this land formed part of the BP-owned Llandarcy Oil Refinery, the UK’s first crude oil plant. Operational from 1922 until its closure in 1997, the site lay dormant for years afterwards – a vast, polluted reminder of an industrial age left behind.

In the early 2000s plans were unveiled to transform it into something radically different: a new village built on the principles of sustainability and traditional design, inspired by the then-Prince Charles’ development at Poundbury in Dorset.

After years of intensive land remediation – stripping away contamination, chemicals and hazards left behind by decades of refining – construction began. Coed Darcy was envisioned as a thriving community in its own right, a 25-year regeneration project that would eventually include thousands of homes, schools, shops and shared spaces. And in many ways, that vision succeeded.

But kilometres away from the neat streets at the top of the hill it’s a very different story. Hidden from view, beyond unmade tracks and woodland, sits a small hamlet of stone-fronted houses with boarded up windows and peeling painted walls.

Symmetrical and eerily still, it feels less like a village and more like a film set abandoned mid-scene. No cars. No footpaths. No street lighting. Despite being built over a decade ago, no-one has ever lived here.

Welsh digital storyteller and former broadcaster Jay Curtis stumbled across the site while filming locally. “There was a time where it looked incredible,” he says. “Fresh paint, green grass, one of the houses fully decorated as a show home. They’d clearly put a lot of work into re-energising the land.”

The hamlet was constructed as a showcase, a test village designed to demonstrate what could be achieved on the former refinery site. These early homes were built ahead of surrounding infrastructure, intended to be folded into the wider development as it expanded. But the expansion never came.

“Roads were never built. Drainage was never put in,” Jay explains. “They were just left. And that’s how they’ve stayed for over 12 years.” Stay informed on everything Neath Port Talbot by signing up to our newsletter here

Over time the homes have begun to succumb to nature. Render peels from walls. Grass has turned patchy and brown. Once-ornamental lakes now sit empty. Jay believes lingering contamination may still be part of the problem.

“There seems to be some oil still in the ground. I think between that and the fact this was essentially a test to see whether the houses could even stand on what’s basically boggy land, everything just stalled.”

The isolation only adds to the eeriness. The hamlet sits moments from the M4 motorway where thousands of motorists pass daily, largely unaware of what lies just beyond the roadside. There are no pavements leading in, no clear access roads, and yet locals report signs of activity.

“People have said they’ve seen lights on at two in the morning,” Jay says. “Vehicles coming and going at odd times. Something’s happening there – no one’s quite sure what.”

Scattered around the area are other unsettling remnants: a roofless building hidden in the woods, stripped of windows and rooms; structures that feel unfinished, or deliberately erased. “It’s like a village that time forgot,” Jay says. “The only thing I can compare it to is an apocalyptic film… Like something you’d stumble across in a Hollywood movie.”

What makes the site all the more remarkable is its royal connection. During development, Prince Charles visited the hamlet, using it as part of his broader vision for sustainable living and traditional architecture.

According to Jay, Coed Darcy itself would go on to influence Poundbury, rather than the other way around, a quiet Welsh launchpad for ideas that later gained national attention.

“To have that level of hype, a royal visit, and such ambition – and then to see it all just left – it amazes people,” Jay says. “These are big, expensive homes. There are a lot of them. And no-one ever moved in.”