48-524: 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 ironworks
96-599: A World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000. Attractions in the town include the Big Pit National Coal Museum (an Anchor Point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage ), Blaenavon Ironworks , the Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway and Blaenavon World Heritage Centre. The town has a male voice choir, a town band, and many historical walks through the local mountains. A railway viaduct was constructed in 1790;
144-484: A company shop. William Coxe visited Blaenavon during 1798–99 and enthusiastically described the small town as “an opulent and increasing establishment, ...surrounded with heaps of ore, coal and limestone”. The ironworks demanded a skilled and permanent labour force, which the Eastern Valley of Monmouthshire lacked. Previous iron works at nearby Pontypool, for instance, had relied on charcoal and water. The nature of
192-476: A forge was constructed in nearby Cwmavon . By 1833 the company owned 430 houses and employed 1000 workers but suffered a periodic boom-and-bust economy that accompanied iron-making with wage cuts, strikes, and the emergence of " Scotch Cattle ". In 1836, the works was bought by the Blaenavon Iron and Coal Company, financed by Londoner Robert Kennard , later an MP. Led by new managing director James Ashwell ,
240-528: 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. Parts of the town and surrounding country form the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape , selected as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000 . Blaenavon literally means "head of the river" or loosely "river's source" in
288-537: A huge investment was made in the ironworks, including the construction of the impressive balance tower which utilised a water displacement lift to carry pig iron from the base of the site to the Brecknock and Abergavenny Canal system, which offered lower tolls to Newport than the Monmouthshire Canal . After this £138,000 investment the site showed little sign of profit and Ashwell was forced to resign in 1840. In
336-507: A little over 1,000 in 1800 to 5115 in 1840, with 61% speaking Welsh and the remainder English. By 1800 Blaenavon Ironworks contributed greatly to South Wales becoming the foremost iron-producing region in the world. Production at Blaenavon was second only to Cyfarthfa Ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil , the largest iron producer in Wales. Two new furnaces were added over the next decade and in 1804
384-827: A number of listed structures . Three are at the highest listing, Grade I: the Cast House and Foundry, the Balance Tower, and the three Blast Furnaces. The remainder are listed at Grade II including: the Chain Store, the Calcining Kilns, a Storage Shed, the Pay Office, Stack Square, and a memorial to the Gilchrists. Blaenavon Blaenavon ( Welsh : Blaenafon ) is a town and community in Torfaen county borough, Wales , high on
432-401: A poor choice for construction of a suitable bridge, as additional stone would need to be shipped to the valley, and the height of the resulting structure would result in an unstable and high-maintenance bridge. Further, the solidity of a stone structure would create additional compressed wind flow around the rail tracks, resulting in a possible safety hazard for passengers and train crew. Overall,
480-470: A total of 370 long tons (380 t) were placed in charge of locomotive driver "Mad Jack" of Pontypool , who before making his first crossing had visited every public house in Crumlin. Mad Jack was actually John Thomas Jenkins, a locomotive driver born in 1821. He raced across the viaduct despite being told to go slowly. Upon completing the crossing he told the angry engineer "when eternity looks you straight in
528-680: A year before the Beeching Axe took place. The lower line's passenger service was among many in Gwent (Monmouthshire) which Ministry of Transport de-classified papers reveal were axed because of rail congestion in the Newport area following the newly opened Llanwern steelworks . Following Samuel Hopkins' death in 1815, his sister Sarah Hopkins of Rugeley, who had inherited much money from her late brother, erected Blaenavon Endowed School in his memory. Which has since been permanently closed. St Peter's Church
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#1733085042872576-475: Is an electoral ward of Torfaen County Borough Council . Blaenavon is twinned with Coutras in France. The town lies near the source of the Afon Lwyd river, north of Cwmbran . The population of Blaenavon has declined gradually at each ten-year census since the closure of the ironworks in 1900. It had fallen to 8,451 by 1961 and fell more rapidly after closure of the coal mine in 1980. Part of this decline
624-616: Is on the outskirts of Blaenavon , in the borough of Torfaen , within the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape , a World Heritage Site . The site is under the care of Cadw , the Welsh Government's historic environment service. Evidence of ironworking in the South Wales Valleys dates from the Roman period. In the 17th century, the Hanburys of Pontypool undertook tinplate manufacture in
672-484: The South Wales Coalfield . The Taff Vale Railway so monopolised the trade of shipping coal to Cardiff Docks , that mine owners were desperate for competitor railway companies to both improve speeds of shipping, provide access to new markets, and hence reduce shipping rates. The London and North Western Railway had developed a route for the industrialised West Midlands and Northwest England , by controlling
720-691: The Welsh language . Blaenavon grew around an ironworks opened in 1788 by the West Midlands industrialist Thomas Hill and his partners, Thomas Hopkins and Benjamin Pratt. The businessmen invested £40,000 into the ironworks project and erected three blast furnaces. Hopkins, as a result of operating the Cannock Wood Forge, Staffordshire, was in contact with skilled and experienced ironworkers, and managed to persuade many of them to migrate to Blaenavon to help establish
768-575: The Blaenavon Company opened Big Pit and finally moved out of iron production. In 1904 the ironworks ceased production completely. Work restarted briefly in 1924 but was commercially unviable. The forges at the site were still being used and helped with the production of steel shell during both world wars but was mostly used as a storage yard for the National Coal Board. In 1959 novelist Alexander Cordell set his most famous novel, Rape of
816-558: The Bryn Tunnel in June 1854, but it could not proceed further as Kennard's construction team had not yet finished the Hengoed Viaduct, which he had won the contract to design and act as civil engineer on. The final Crumlin viaduct, at 200 feet (61 m) high and 1,650 feet (500 m) across its two spans and ten trusses in length (1,066 feet (325 m) and 584 feet (178 m)), remained
864-480: The English border). However, the project did not succeed. This can be attributed to a combination of the town's remote location and the established competition from Hay. Many thriving community groups serve and improve the town, including Future Blaenavon, which has helped to create a community garden at the bottom of the town. Parts of the town and surrounding country form the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape , selected as
912-520: The Fair Country at the ironworks and in the surrounding area at the height of the industrial revolution. At around the same time, industrial archaeology began to emerge as a discipline and the site was spared the fate of so many other 18th–19th century industrial works. In 1974 the conservation of the ironworks began. Shortly after statutory protection was provided for various sites in Blaenavon including
960-653: The Llanfihangel Railway and the Grosmont Railways as feeder lines into the Hereford Railway, and hence onwards via the joint GWR/LNWR controlled Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway . This allowed shipment of goods from Pontypool and the Ebbw Valley to Hereford . However, access to the productive Rhymney Valley and Rhondda Valley coalfields was at best restricted, having to route trains south to Cardiff along
1008-667: The TVR, then along the South Wales Railway to Newport via the GWR, before being able to access LNWR controlled track. The UK Parliament approved an Act of Parliament on 3 August 1846, the construction of the Taff Vale Extension, which would connect Coedygric North Junction at Pontypool with the TVR/GWR at Quakers Yard , and hence allow direct and LNWR controlled access. The LNWR approved
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#17330850428721056-488: The UK Ministry of Health ; it was run as a cottage hospital until 1985. When the hospital closed the building was sold by the local authority and refurbished as a nursing home for the elderly. In 1995 the building was listed as a Grade 2 listed building . Following the closure of the nursing home in 2007, the building was left empty. It was badly vandalised and stripped of its lead work, slate roof and original interiors, and
1104-451: The UK to operate. It was therefore no surprise when, following the post- World War II nationalisation, British Railways reduced the entire extension line to single track after 1947. As a result of the Beeching Axe , the last booked westbound scheduled passenger train ran over the viaduct on Saturday 13 June 1964, the 8.55pm from Pontypool Road to Aberdare (High Level), arriving at 10.09pm, which
1152-461: The area around Blaenavon. The land was the property of Lord Abergavenny , known as Lord Abergavenny's Hills, and in 1788 Henry Nevill, 2nd Earl of Abergavenny granted a renewal of the lease on 12,000 acres to three Midlands businessmen, Thomas Hill , his brother-in-law Thomas Hopkins and Benjamin Pratt. The commercial advantage of the area was that the three essential elements for iron production, coal , iron ore and limestone , all outcropped on
1200-419: The face, you may as well go at full speed to meet it!" He died at 65 still in service with London and North Western Railways. After a series of tests, during which a deflection of less than 1.5 inches (38 mm) was measured, the bridge was approved for use in the same month. The viaduct was opened on Whit Monday , 1 June 1857 by Lady Isabella Fitzmaurice, with the first train crossing the bridge and entering
1248-453: The following years, iron rails produced at Blaenavon were exported all over the world, including India, Russia, and Brazil; but also in projects closer to home such as the construction of Crumlin Viaduct . When Ashwell resigned, Mr. Scrivener became manager of the works and production picked up for a short while. In 1845 sales reached a peak of 35,549 tons out of which 20,732 tons were sold. This
1296-544: The highest railway viaduct in Great Britain throughout its working life. Nearby were the Crumlin railway stations , both at high (viaduct) and valley levels. As Liddell predicted, the location proved to be susceptible to high winds and resultant swaying, resulting in continual expensive maintenance. The NA&HR route, due to a combination of its height and steepness, proved to be one of the most expensive railway lines in all of
1344-406: The iron industry had rendered necessary . The company was relaunched in 1870 as the Blaenavon Iron & Steel Company and was one of only six south Wales ironworks that successfully made the change to steel production. By 1878 the company employed 5,000 people but had greatly overreached itself financially and failed against tough competition. With financial ruin just around the corner, the company
1392-575: The iron structures were cast at Kennard's Falkirk Ironworks and shipped to Newport Docks . Kennard began construction in October 1853 by building the Crumlin Viaduct Works on the east bank. Here castings from Falkirk were brought together with wrought iron from Blaenavon, and all fitting and fabrication work took place. After shortening the spur from the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal , and with
1440-440: The ironworks site. They have been furnished to represent life in different eras, from the 1870s to the 1970s. In 2000 the ironworks and the wider Blaenavon Industrial Landscape was awarded UNESCO World Heritage Site status, recognising the site's importance to "the pre-eminence of South Wales as the world's major producer of iron and coal in the 19th century." Blaenavon Ironworks is a Scheduled monument . The site contains
1488-563: The ironworks. In 2001, the site underwent a major restoration. The 160-year old cast iron columns at the top of the tower were taken down and the iron frame was recast and painted. The site is now in the care of Cadw . Clive Aslet describes the site at Blaenavon as "the best-preserved industrial relic of its kind". Stack Square is a small group of workers’ cottages. It featured in the BBC television series Coal House . The workers' cottages have been restored to their original design and form part of
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1536-503: The land between the two valleys acting as the ninth pier, the first girder was hoisted into place on 3 December 1854. The completed structure linking Pontypool Clarence Street railway station in the north via the Bryn Tunnel (398 yards (364 m)) to the viaduct east end, came by the end of May 1857. Testing began that same month, in front of the Board of Trade Inspector, Colonel Wynne. Six locomotives loaded with pig iron or lead weighing
1584-420: The land surface in the western valleys, allowing for their much easier, horizontal, extraction rather than requiring the construction of deep, vertical, mines. Work constructing the ironworks began immediately and included several cottages for workers. Blaenavon Ironworks was the first in Wales to be designed as a multi-furnace site from the outset, with three furnaces, calcining kilns, workers’ accommodation and
1632-573: The least expensive bridge for its size ever constructed; the tallest railway viaduct in the United Kingdom ; the third tallest viaduct in the world, after the aqueduct at Spoleto , Italy , and the timber viaduct in Portage , New York state . During the Industrial Revolution , and the mass-extraction of coal from South Wales , there was a resultant growth in construction of railways into
1680-546: The lower valley area. In the period between closure of the NA&;HR and dismantling operation beginning, scenes for the Universal Pictures film Arabesque , which starred Sophia Loren and Gregory Peck , were shot both on and around the viaduct. Its demolition, by Bird's of Swansea, began in June 1965 and took nine months, with the help of a Bailey bridge . The iron parts of the bridge had been completely dismantled by
1728-598: The new ironworks. In 1836 Robert William Kennard formed the Blaenavon Coal and Iron Company, which subsequently bought the Blaenavon Ironworks. Blaenavon House, a mansion constructed in 1798 by Thomas Hopkins, was repurposed as a hospital in 1924, supported by the subscriptions of local iron and coal workers. In the 1940s the hospital site was given by the then owners of the site, the National Coal Board , to
1776-670: The required capital expenditure, and merged the existing three railways and the extension project in the new Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway. The route for the Taff Vale Extension required the construction of two significant viaducts across two major river valleys: one across the Ebbw River ; and one across the Rhymney River , the Hengoed Viaduct . The Ebbw Valley posed two significant challenges through its geography: Chief Engineer Charles Liddell concluded that stone would be
1824-628: The required over-engineered result would also have been very expensive. His recommendation therefore to the board was for a cast-iron structure. Two tender responses were received by August 1852, with Liddell's recommendation for a design by Scottish civil engineer Thomas W. Kennard , using an amended design using the Warren truss . Contracts were signed in December 1852, with a stipulated completion date of 1 October 1857. After further experimentation with his design system at his father's Blaenavon Ironworks ,
1872-541: The structure disappeared and was unearthed in a 2001 episode of the archaeology television programme Time Team . The Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway is a scenic attraction rich in geological and historical interest. Blaenavon lost both of its passenger railway stations — Blaenavon High Level station closed in 1941, and the last train from Blaenavon (Low Level) (to Newport via Pontypool Crane Street ) ran in April 1962. The lower line had already been closed for more than
1920-404: The work introduced to Blaenavon was different including changes to the coal-using technology and the application of steam power, not used until that time in the Eastern Valley. Skilled workers came mainly from West Wales, Staffordshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Somerset and Ireland. Unskilled men, often with families, came for the promise of work. The population of the district expanded from
1968-418: Was a rise of 5,000 tons on sales for the previous year. However, fluidity was uncertain. By 1847 sales had declined to 18,981 tons. The works continued to suffer. A lower amount of pig iron was produced in 1849, partly due to the furnaces being out of action for three months. It was claimed, however, that this was the consequence of workmen refusing to submit to a reduction in wages, which the depressed state of
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2016-450: Was booked to stop at Crumlin (High Level) at 9.20pm. The very last eastbound train over the Vale of Neath line was the 8.45pm from Neath (General) to Aberdare (High Level) which on Saturdays was extended from Aberdare to Pontypool Road arriving there at 11.18pm, calling at Crumlin (High Level) at 10.54pm. but apparently ran only as far as Aberdare on that date. Preservation of the historic viaduct
2064-785: Was brought up in the town. Crumlin Viaduct The Crumlin Viaduct was a railway viaduct located above the village of Crumlin in South Wales , originally built to carry the Taff Vale Extension of the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway (NA&HR) across the Ebbw River . Hailed as "one of the most significant examples of technological achievement during the Industrial Revolution", in its 107 years of service until being dismantled in 1965, it remained:
2112-546: Was constructed in 1804, gifted to the parish by Thomas Hill and Samuel Hopkins. Blaenavon Golf Club (now defunct) was founded in 1906. The club closed in 1937. Notable people born in Blaenavon include the Broadway and film actor E. E. Clive , award-winning mystery writer Dorothy Simpson , and international rugby union players Mark Taylor , Ken Jones (also an Olympic athlete), John Perkins , Chris Huish and Terry Cobner . Nick Thomas-Symonds , elected MP for Torfaen in 2015,
2160-510: Was discussed, and the structure was scheduled as being of architectural and historical interest by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government . But while the stone Hengoed Viaduct survived, a structural survey of the cast-iron Crumlin Viaduct showed its poor state, and resultant need for high investment to secure its future, let alone ongoing maintenance costs. The decision was therefore made to dismantle it because, by then, housing had extended into
2208-425: Was given some respite thanks to the discoveries of Sidney Gilchrist Thomas and Percy Carlyle Gilchrist which enabled the use of the previously uneconomic phosphoric iron ore. Their experiments were carried out at Blaenavon between 1877 and 1878. This was short lived as it meant Germany and North America were now able to utilise their own phosphoric ores which accelerated the decline of Blaenavon Ironworks. In 1880
2256-613: Was not emigration but a decrease in birth rate. The Blaenavon Coal and Iron Company developed the Big Pit coalworks with adjoining steel works particularly for rail manufacture. The steel-making and coal mining industries followed, boosting the town's population to over 20,000 at one time before 1890. Since 1988, part of this site has been the Big Pit National Coal Museum . Government, publishers and mainly Welsh writers sought in 2003 to attract more visitors by introducing Blaenavon as Wales' second " book town " (the first being Hay-on-Wye on
2304-565: Was placed on the Buildings At Risk register. In 2016 a fire caused severe damage to the ballroom wing and adjoining extension. The House was sold in 2017 to private owners and is currently undergoing restoration as a family home once again. The Municipal Offices in Lion Street were the home of Blaenavon Urban District Council until local government reorganisation in 1974. Blaenavon is a community represented by Blaenavon Town Council and
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