Or should that be Blaenafon Ironworks?
A World Heritage Site since 2000!
This model shows exactly how large the 'stack' was amongst the cottages of what was later known as 'stack square.' It must have blocked out much of the light from their small windows. Now only the base of it remains. The cottages were used by the BBC for two drama series; "Coal House" and "Coal House at War." These cottages were built to attract the cream of skilled workers from other regions, but as the site developed and the stack was built, these families moved out into the town, and the area became a less desirable place to live.
The birth of Heaernpunk !
This fantastic industrial site is in the process of undergoing a little care and attention from CADW and friends. I don't like the word "makeover," as it sounds as though everything is being masked and covered up with lipstick, eye shadow and foundation. Haearnpunk (pronounced Ironpunk) is the term adopted to reflect the decorative industrial style of signage on site.
Ore, Blast, Pour, Cast, Iron
The keywords repeated across the site to convey the process of the iron industry.
In 1789 Hill, Hopkin & Pratt purchased 12,000 acres from the Marquess of Abergavenny. Within four years they had built housing for 200 people. "Build it and they will come," may be a phrase coined in a Kevin Costner film, but that is exactly what happened. Experienced people came from Staffordshire and Shropshire. Local people moved from hard graft on farms to even harder graft in industry.
Later local man Sidney Gilchrist Thomas along with Percy Carlisle Gilchrist, invented the Bessemer convertor in the 1850s. This process conquered the problem of iron ore with a high sulphur content, and increased the quality of the steel produced. Unfortunately this solution was used world-wide to solve the same problem, ensuring the expansion of the iron industry in other countries and the eventual demise in 1911 of the iron industry of Blaenavon.
Trees and tin sheds have recently been removed from the site making its location far more obvious as you turn the corner on your way to Big Pit. Why visit Big Pit and bypass the Ironworks, the heart of the Heritage Site? Pop in and listen to the voices of characters explaining their part in the creation of iron in the blast furnaces. Admire the over-the-top, highly engineered structure which was the water balance. Enjoy the pit ponies (pawnees, as we say in the valleys), sculpted from waste iron. Soon, too you will be able to enjoy the "Life of Hell,' which will be a furnace experience of making pig iron in all its hot, dirty, noisy, glorious hellishness.
Big Pit was originally sunk to provide iron ore for this ironworks. Later they found coal in huge quantities there and the sales and export of coal overtook that of iron.
Although this was not the first works to be built in the South Wales Valleys, it was the first which was deliberately planned to have more than one furnace (three in fact). At its peak it had six.
http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/2175/
http://cadw.wales.gov.uk/daysout/blaenavonironworks/?lang=en
A World Heritage Site since 2000!
 |
| An on-site model of the Ironworks in the 1800s |
The birth of Heaernpunk !
This fantastic industrial site is in the process of undergoing a little care and attention from CADW and friends. I don't like the word "makeover," as it sounds as though everything is being masked and covered up with lipstick, eye shadow and foundation. Haearnpunk (pronounced Ironpunk) is the term adopted to reflect the decorative industrial style of signage on site.
 |
| Remains of one blast furnace |
Ore, Blast, Pour, Cast, Iron
The keywords repeated across the site to convey the process of the iron industry.
In 1789 Hill, Hopkin & Pratt purchased 12,000 acres from the Marquess of Abergavenny. Within four years they had built housing for 200 people. "Build it and they will come," may be a phrase coined in a Kevin Costner film, but that is exactly what happened. Experienced people came from Staffordshire and Shropshire. Local people moved from hard graft on farms to even harder graft in industry.
 |
| Water balance raised & lowered materials |
Trees and tin sheds have recently been removed from the site making its location far more obvious as you turn the corner on your way to Big Pit. Why visit Big Pit and bypass the Ironworks, the heart of the Heritage Site? Pop in and listen to the voices of characters explaining their part in the creation of iron in the blast furnaces. Admire the over-the-top, highly engineered structure which was the water balance. Enjoy the pit ponies (pawnees, as we say in the valleys), sculpted from waste iron. Soon, too you will be able to enjoy the "Life of Hell,' which will be a furnace experience of making pig iron in all its hot, dirty, noisy, glorious hellishness.
Big Pit was originally sunk to provide iron ore for this ironworks. Later they found coal in huge quantities there and the sales and export of coal overtook that of iron.
 |
| Looking up through the water balance |
Although this was not the first works to be built in the South Wales Valleys, it was the first which was deliberately planned to have more than one furnace (three in fact). At its peak it had six.
http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/2175/
http://cadw.wales.gov.uk/daysout/blaenavonironworks/?lang=en
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