Blaenavon Industrial Landscape, in and around Blaenavon, Torfaen, Wales, was inscribed a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000. The Blaenavon Ironworks, now a museum, was a major centre of iron production using locally mined or quarried iron ore, coal and limestone. Raw materials and products were transported via horse-drawn tramroads, canals and steam railways. The Landscape includes protected or listed monuments of the industrial processes, transport infrastructure, workers' housing and other aspects of early industrialisation in South Wales.
The Industrial Revolution in Britain was based on iron and coal, the main products of the South Wales valleys. Production of pig iron in the region grew from 39,600 tons in 1796 to 666,000 tons in 1852, and the iron was used to build railways, factories and engines around the world.[1] Blaenavon was an important centre of coal mining and iron making in South Wales during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The Blaenavon Ironworks was opened around 1789 and caused development of the mines, quarries and housing.[2]
Blaenavon lies at the upper end of the Afon Lwyd valley in South Wales.[2] The World Heritage Site is based on the large area of land that the Blaenavon Company leased in 1789.[1] The site is on the north eastern rim of the South Wales Coalfield.[3] The area is an excellent example of an industrial landscape formed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries by mining and iron making activities.[4] The 3,290 hectares (8,100 acres) site contains the Blaenavon Ironworks and the Big Pit coal mine, surrounded by mines and quarries, manufacturing plant, railways, canal, workers' housing and social infrastructure.[2]
Elements of the landscape
Blaenavon Ironworks Buildings and Water Balance Tower
The Blaenavon Ironworks operated from 1789 to 1902. Today there are remains of six blast furnaces, cast houses, boiler rooms, engine houses, the water balance tower used to raise and lower trams, and workers' housing around Stack Square.[1] The remains of the furnaces from the late 18th century and the 19th century are well preserved. Other elements include the 1839 water balance tower, two casting houses, ruined kilns, the base of the massive chimney of the blowing engine, the cast-iron structure that carried the blast pipes to the furnaces, and ruins of workers' housing.[2]
The Big Pit was the last deep coal mine to remain operational in the area. The surface buildings, winding gear and underground workings are still in excellent condition.[2] The Big Pit coal mine, now managed by Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales, was worked from around 1860 until 1980. The original pithead buildings have been preserved, including the head frame, winding engine and baths.[1] The Big Pit Colliery was reopened as a museum in 1983. Visitors may take an underground tour. In 2005 it won the Gulbenkian Prize for museum of the year.[5]
Extant buildings from the early industrial period include Ty-Mawr (Big House) also known as Blaenavon House, built for Iron Master, Samuel Hopkins, in 1791, worker's housing terraces, St. Peter's Church (1804), St. Peter's School (1816) and the Blaenavon Workmen's Hall (1894).[2] Other elements of the Industrial Landscape are the mines and quarries from which coal, iron ore, fire clay and limestone were extracted.[2] There are traces of horse-drawn railways, tunnels and inclines that were used to carry iron ore, coal and limestone to the ironworks, and to carry pig iron to the Garnddyrys Forge. Wrought iron was taken from the forge to Llanfoist on the Brecknock and Abergavenny Canal for transport to other parts of Britain and the world. There are walks and trails along which visitors may explore the Landscape.[1] Waymarked footpaths follow the tracks of the earliest iron railways.[3] The Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway was once an important transport facility. The steam railway has been restored and has a station in the centre of the town.[5]
A 33 square kilometres (13sqmi) area of the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in December 2000.[3] Blaenavon was the first "cultural landscape" to be recognised in the United Kingdom. About £40 million was spent in the first ten years.[6] The Landscape meets two criteria for a World Heritage Site.
Criterion (iii): An exceptional illustration in material form of the social and economic structure of 19th century industry.
Criterion (iv): An outstanding and remarkably complete example of a 19th-century industrial landscape.
In 2013, retrospective statements of Outstanding Universal Value were added to the listing:
Evidence of tangible and intangible heritage of the development of early industrial society.
Outstanding relict landscape of the combined efforts of nature and man.
Evidence of the area’s international importance in iron making and coal mining in the late 18th and early 19th century.
Development of transport systems in the late 18th and 19th centuries.[2]
The boundary of the property, defined by historical land ownership, landscape features and exclusion of areas that lack historical authenticity, includes the main monuments of the mining and iron working settlement, in remarkably good condition, and the remains of mine, quarry and transport infrastructure. It is possible to trace the complex industrial process and its social aspects in the early Industrial Revolution.[2]
Preservation
Blaenavon World Heritage Centre
The Landscape includes 24 scheduled monuments and 82 listed buildings, of which the most important are publicly owned. At the time of inscription as a World Heritage Site many of the elements were vulnerable due to lack of conservation. Since then there has been extensive work on conserving the ironworks, Big Pit and other historic elements of Blaenavon and the surrounding landscape. There are continued efforts to ensure that new development does not reduce the value and appearance of the Landscape.[2]
The Torfaen County Borough Council, Brecon Beacons National Park Authority and Monmouthshire County Council have statutory planning responsibility for parts of the Landscape. The development plans of these authorities aim to protect the property, which is also covered by provisions of the Town and Country Planning Act (1980) and the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas Act, 1990). The Blaenavon Town Centre and Cwmavon are conservation areas, and there is a proposal to make Forgeside and Glantorfaen another conservation area. A World Heritage Centre was opened for visitors in 2008. The Landscape is managed by the Blaenavon Partnership, which involves various authorities, agencies and other bodies and is led by Torfaen County Borough Council.[2] A World Heritage Day is held in June each year. A cost-benefit analysis of the world heritage status has shown that it had succeeded in regenerating the area.[7]
Abersychan is a town and community north of Pontypool in Torfaen, Wales, and lies within the boundaries of the historic county of Monmouthshire and the preserved county of Gwent.
Pontypool is a town and the administrative centre of the county borough of Torfaen, within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire in South Wales. As of 2021, it has a population of 29,062.
Blaenavon is a town and community in Torfaen county borough, Wales, high on a hillside on the source of the Afon Lwyd. It is within the boundaries of the historic county of Monmouthshire and the preserved county of Gwent. The population is 6,055.
Varteg is a village in the county borough of Torfaen in Wales.
The Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway is a 3.5-mile (5.6 km) volunteer-run heritage railway in South Wales, running trains between a halt platform opposite the Whistle Inn public house southwards to the town of Blaenavon via a two-platform station at the site of former colliery furnace of the Big Pit National Coal Museum.
Big Pit National Coal Museum is an industrial heritage museum in Blaenavon, Torfaen, Wales. A working coal mine from 1880 to 1980, it was opened to the public in 1983 as a charitable trust called the Big Pit (Blaenavon) Trust. By 1 February 2001 Big Pit Coal Museum was incorporated into the National Museums and Galleries of Wales as the National Mining Museum of Wales. The site is dedicated to operational preservation of the Welsh heritage of coal mining, which took place during the Industrial Revolution.
Forge Side was the site of an ironworks started in 1836. The development was soon abandoned, but resumed in 1859. A settlement of houses was built for the workers.
Cwmavon is a hamlet about 2 miles south of Blaenavon and 4 miles north of Pontypool. The hamlet is part of the community of Abersychan in the county borough of Torfaen in south east Wales, and is within the boundaries of the historic county of Monmouthshire.
Coity Mountain is a flat-topped mountain in the South Wales Valleys, between Blaenavon and Abertillery. The highest points of both Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent unitary authorities are at the summit of Coity Mountain. The summit is also known as Twyn Ffynhonnau Goerion. Some 2 km (1 mi) to the southeast lies a major subsidiary top of the hill, Mynydd Varteg Fawr (549m) at the southeastern end of whose broad ridge is a trig point at 544m. A few hundred metres to the southeast of this summit is a memorial known as the Dog Stone which commemorates Carlo the Red Setter, a dog shot accidentally by his master while hunting on the 12 August 1864. Co-ordinates for the Dog Stone 51.45'15.58N 3.05'08.81W. Other notable tops include those of Mulfran (524m) which overlooks the town of Brynmawr and Mynydd James immediately east of the town of Blaina.
Mining in Wales provided a significant source of income to the economy of Wales throughout the nineteenth century and early to mid twentieth century. It was key to the Industrial Revolution in Wales, and to the whole of Great Britain.
The Clydach Gorge is a steep-sided valley in south-east Wales down which the River Clydach flows to the River Usk. It runs for 5.6 kilometres (3.5 mi) from the vicinity of Brynmawr in Blaenau Gwent eastwards and northeastwards to Gilwern in Monmouthshire. The Gorge was one of the first locations in the region to be industrialised though it still retains its natural environment. It has long been an important transport corridor between Abergavenny and the lowlands of Monmouthshire and the northeastern quarter of the South Wales Coalfield. It is now exploited by the A465 Heads of the Valleys trunk road which runs between Abergavenny and Swansea and which serves the Heads of the Valleys sub-region.
The South Telford Heritage Trail is a circular, waymarked walking route that passes by forty-nine heritage sites in the English town of Telford.
Blaenavon Ironworks is a former industrial site which is now a museum in Blaenavon, Wales. The ironworks was of crucial importance in the development of the ability to use cheap, low quality, high sulphur iron ores worldwide. It was the site of the experiments by Sidney Gilchrist Thomas and his cousin Percy Gilchrist that led to "the basic steel process" or "Gilchrist–Thomas process".
The coal industry in Wales played an important role in the Industrial Revolution in Wales. Coal mining in Wales expanded in the 18th century to provide fuel for the blast furnaces of the iron and copper industries that were expanding in southern Wales. The industry had reached large proportions by the end of that century, and then further expanded to supply steam-coal for the steam vessels that were beginning to trade around the world. The Cardiff Coal Exchange set the world price for steam-coal and Cardiff became a major coal-exporting port. The South Wales Coalfield was at its peak in 1913 and was one of the largest coalfields in the world. It remained the largest coalfield in Britain until 1925. The supply of coal dwindled, and pits closed in spite of a UK-wide strike against closures. Aberpergwm Colliery is the last deep mine in Wales.
The Pwll Du Tunnel was the longest horse-powered tramway tunnel to be built in Britain at 1,875 metres (6,152 ft) in length. It started in Blaenavon, Torfaen, Wales, and was originally a coal mine, running northward almost horizontally into a hillside. Later it was extended right through the hill and used to carry limestone from quarries at Pwll Du and Tyla to the ironworks at Blaenavon, and to carry pig iron from Blaenavon to the Garnddyrys Forge. The tramway was extended past Garnddyrys to Llanfoist Wharf on the Brecknock and Abergavenny Canal. The tramway from Pwll Du to the canal fell out of use when the railway came to Blaenavon and the Garnddyrys forge was closed in 1860, but the tunnel continued to be used to carry limestone to Blaenavon until 1926. It is now a scheduled monument and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Garnddyrys Forge was an iron foundry in Wales that operated from about 1817 to 1860 about 3 km north of Blaenavon in Wales, lying on a tramroad between Blaenavon and the Brecknock and Abergavenny Canal. At one time 450 people lived around the ironworks. It became isolated when the railway took a different route to Blaenavon, and was abandoned. Although little now is visible, it is archaeologically well-preserved.
The Blaenavon Railroad was a horse drawn tramroad built to link Blaenavon Ironworks with the Monmouthshire Canal in south east Wales.
Forge Row is a terrace of seven, originally twelve, cottages build around 1804 for workers at a nearby forge in Cwmavon, Torfaen, south east Wales. The cottages have been sympathetically restored. The terrace is regarded as a fine example of early housing for industrial workers in South Wales, and all the cottages are Grade II* listed buildings. The cottages lie to the east of the Afon Llwyd river.
James Ashwell (1799-1881) was an engineer and director, working in the coal, iron, and railway industries. In 1836 he helped in the formation of the Blaenavon Iron and Coal Company and was appointed resident managing director.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
