Blaenavon Heritage Centre News

Events Living Landscapes Lecture - 13 May  • Discover what the Forgotten Landscapes Partnership have been doing to care for the globally important Blaenavon World Heritage Site landscape • FREE entry to the lecture starting at 6pm at Blaenavon World Heritage Centre • Minibus tour of the landscape at 10am on Saturday 24 May. Meet at Blaenavon World Heritage Centre • Places limited. Booking essential. Call 01495 742333 -  Details of other events Big Pit National Coal Museum - A Wild Whitsun Monday 26 May - Sunday 1 June 11am - 4pm A week full of outdoor activities for the whole family - enjoy walks, trails, nature detecting and much more. Suitable outdoor clothing and footwear required. Please book by calling: (029) 2057 3650. Charge applies. Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway is running every weekend in May……. 3rd Steam Engine; 4th and 5th Steam and Diesel Engines; 10th and 11th Diesel Engines; 17th and 18th Vintage Train; 24th, 25th, 26th Teddy Bears Picnic - meet our teddy and bring your own! With games and activities to take part in, every child gets a free picnic! More details...   Table Top Sales , Bethlehem Court The Blaenavon Town Team are holding regular table top sales in Bethlehem Court.  £5 per table or two tables for £8 for community groups and £10 for a business.  There will be a series of table top sales up until August, as follows: 7 June, Saturday 12 July and 23 August. Contact Blaenavon World Heritage Centre to book a table on 01495 742333 or e-mailblaenavontic@torfaen.gov.uk    News Celts Week at World Heritage Centre In April we hosted our popular “Celts  Week” for young school children who used the World Heritage Centre as a base to learn more about our Celtic ancestors, making pots, a silver “torque” (bracelet) and weaving before heading outside for their “Warrior Training” which included painting their faces a fierce blue! There were 250 visitors and the popularity of the trips has meant that extra sessions are scheduled for June and October and there is already a waiting list! The World Heritage Centre education offer is increasing to cover learners of all ages. If you are interested in bringing a class of children please ring 01495 742333 to discuss your requirements or visit our website.   Flying Camera in the World Heritage Site Recently we had a remotely operated flying camera filming in the grounds of the World Heritage Centre (as well as other locations around the World Heritage Site). Sounding like a swarm of angry bees the flying platform’s film quality and images captured are amazing and will feature soon on a forthcoming promotional film of the World Heritage Site. Watch this space for details.  Fringe Festival  This year’s Blaenavon World Heritage Day will be on Saturday 28 June 2014.  In the lead up we will be holding a ‘Fringe Festival’ from Saturday 21 June – Saturday 28 June.  It will give local traders the opportunity to promote their businesses to the local community and visitors.  We are encouraging traders to put on their own activities, offers and events; these will be marketed in the lead up to the main event. Please forward details of all your activities and events to kate.fitzgerald@torfaen.gov.uk or 01633 648319. Saving the Powder House Located on the B4248 Blaenavon to Brynmawr road the Powder House is a listed Building and is part of the World Heritage Site story. The building stored explosives which were used to mine for minerals. Over the years, run off from adjacent coal spoil has been undermining the Powder House and causing it to largely collapse. To to help safeguard what’s left of it the Forgotten Landscapes Project has improved drainage in the area and created a reed bed which will be great for wildlife.  More information about Forgotten Landscape projects.    Copyright © 2014 -Torfaen County Borough Council, All rights reserved. Their mailing address is: Torfaen County Borough Council, Ty Blaen Torfaen, Panteg Way, New Inn, Pontypool, Torfaen. NP4 0LS

Queen's Baton at Guardian, Six Bells

Royal Ordnance Factory, South Wales

The Royal Ordnance Factory between Pontypool and Usk was created to produce munitions for WWII. It grew quickly and employed hundreds of people from the surrounding district, bussing people in from the valleys.

The link below tells the story of Gwyn Tucker (nee Taylor) who worked there from 1939 to 1945 when she moved to London with her new husband who had returned from the war.

A fascinating first-hand story of her working life.



BBC.CO.UK history of ROF Glascoed

Capel Newydd, Blaenavon, South Wales

This small cross marks the site of Capel Newydd (New Chapel), Blaenavon’s earliest known place of Christian worship. The chapel dates to medieval times but little is known about its history. Local legend says it was built by some maidens from Varteg. Sermons continued to be held there in Welsh until the 1860s, when it was finally abandoned. Stone from the chapel was used to build St Paul’s Church in 1893, which also contains a Welsh Bible, the chapel key and stone altar from Capel Newydd.

Blaenavon Community Heritage Museum image

history of Capel Newydd & St Peters

A Bridge to the Past

Images from a past world



In Six Bells, if you walk through the tunnel beneath the cycle path, which was the old railway line, and then up a short steep hill you come to another bridge where you can walk under the busy Aberbeeg to Abertillery road.











A few years ago the community created a series of images which are mounted on the walls beneath this bridge. They reflect life when 'coal was king,' when the community felt its future would lie securely in coal, hill farming and smallholdings.


Now the community has had to learn to diversify and look for employment in a few local factories, or perhaps commuting to the cities of Newport and Cardiff or the relatively new town of Cwmbran.

The Coach & Horses pub - now Ty Ebbw Fach Centre

I understand that one of the original pit wheels from Six Bells is sited in the grounds of Abertillery Comprehensive School. 

The local bus depot was located nearby at Warm Turn, a strange name which, no doubt has a history of its own. The owner had once been a miner but saw a need for transport in the valleys and forms a company, employing his sons as well as local people.

Walls of South Wales

Sorry if I confused you. I'm not talking about ice-cream but the walls which form barriers between places or rooms. Walls are generally ignored and taken for granted, but if you think logically, without them our great buildings could not exist. Stay with me, please, I do have a point I'm trying to get to.

Today the world moves at a tremendous speed. Everyone rushing around going here, doing that, seeing this, and texting about it at the same time. Because of this many of us suffer with stress and that's where 

coal face

walls come in. Do you lie in bed with ideas and thoughts rushing around your head, unable to sleep. Well I read once that you should think of a brick wall. I tried that but ended up counting the bricks, a never-ending task with a never-ending wall. Not very conducive for a goods night's sleep.

But then I remembered a wall I had seen in Madeira. Water seeped down from the luxuriously watered lawn above it. Amongst the stones of the wall small flowers had blossomed as well as mosses and lichens. It was beautiful. This is the wall I think of when I can't sleep. It forms a barrier between me and all the things I feel I should be doing or worrying about.






This made me think of all the walls I have photographed whilst wandering around Wales. (Doesn't everyone?)

I couldn't resist this one, although not in South Wales
Two walls in "the drains" of Sorrento, Italy, painted to look like cathedral arches.
Really! These are flat walls.

A 2nd pic showing a little of the paint wearing off with the weather.

Newport Medieval Ship

Just across the bridge from Newport Castle lies the Riverfront Theatre, but hundreds of years before a large wooden ship anchored against the quay on that very spot. When builders started digging the foundations of the theatre they found the ship, buried in the mud, already holed by previous building work. After much protest from the public, Newport Council agreed to keep the remains of the ship and preserve it.

Ever since, it has remained at a warehouse in Maesglas Industrial Estate. Large tanks preserve the huge wooden beams of this vessel which was sailing trade routes between the Severn estuary in South Wales and the Iberian Peninsula when Christopher Columbus was born and may even have crossed paths with him when he came to dock in Bristol on one of his ventures.

This ship (no-one has discovered her name), is not just "another boat," she is the only example, anywhere in the world, of a 15th Century ship and the people of Newport found her. She is here for the people of Newport and the rest of the world to treasure.

Ancient artefacts such as shoes and combs have been found amidst the wreckage and are on display during open days. Visitors can handle items that are 550 years old. Friends of Newport Ship organise a few days a year when the warehouse is open to the public. Visitors can help support their cause by purchasing items or making donations.

Unfortunately, due to cutbacks within the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) and Newport City Council, there are few funds to keep or even display this vessel, so its up to the Friends of the Newport Ship to come up with ideas to raise funds and help maintain the impetus which will eventually allow people to come and view this ancient piece of our maritime history in its own custom-made museum.

Open Days

Saturday 26th April 2014

Saturday 24th May 2014

Saturday 12 July 2014

South Wales needs tourism, the Newport Ship could bring in hundreds of tourists a year just to see it.

Remember, the Newport Ship belongs to everyone. If you wish to help or find out more then join the Friends of the Newport Ship at:

www.newportship.org

Tel: 01633 215707