PONTYPOOL, a town and urban sanitary district of Monmouthshire, England, situated on an acclivity above the river Avon Lwyd, on the Monmouthshire Canal, and on the Great-Western and Monmouthshire Railways, 8 miles north of Newport. The town-hall, in the Doric style, dates from 1856, the market-house from 1846, and the Baptist theological college from 1856. At one period Poutypool was famed for its japanned goods, invented by Thomas Allwood, a native of Northampton, who settled in the town in the reign of Charles II., but the manufacture has long been transferred altogether to other towns. The present prosperity of Pontypool is due to its situation on the edge of the great Pembrokeshire coal and iron basin. The earliest record of trade in iron is in 1588, but it was developed chiefly in the beginning of the 18th century by the Hanburys, the proprietors of Pontypool Park. The town possesses large forges and iron-mills for the manufacture of iron-work and tin-plate. The population of the urban sanitary district (area 800 acres) in 1871 was 4834, and in 1881 it was 5244.