Industrial heritage Archives - Aberyscir Coach House

Brecon Beacons Gunpowder

March 15, 2019 By Valerie Davies

Gunpowder Brecon Beacons

The Glynneath Gunpowder Works Pontneddfechan were established in 1857. It produced black powder for use in mining and quarrying and operated until the early 1930’s. Since that time the site slowly disintegrated. Many of the buildings had to be demolished because of the risk of accidental explosion they posed. Brecon Beacons Park authority took over the site and it has undergone a major restoration project to preserve what remains. You will be able to start your tour in the Pontneddfechan Village Hall when the project is finished. A walk along the line of the old tramroad which takes you through the works and past the remains of each of the factory buildings. Interpretative boards along the way will help you imagine it in its heyday when 60-70 people were working there.

How to make Gunpowder Brecon Beacons

The factory’s waterwheels and turbines were powered by the River Mellte, effectively providing free and fairly constant energy.

The raw materials, charcoal, sulphur and salt petre or potassium nitrate came in at the bottom of the site. The materials were then transported around by tramroad until the finished black powder came out at the top.

Safety was paramount and all possible precautions had to be taken to avoid explosions. Employees always changed into work clothes before entering potentially dangerous areas. They wore leather slippers fastened with wooden pegs over their shoes and boots. Trousers with pockets were not allowed or turn-ups to prevent grit being carried into the works which might have caused sparks.

To avoid explosions areas of the works were regularly dowsed with water to keep them damp in a process called liquoring. Other areas were also doused after an explosion to stop it spreading. They had a fairly good safety record at this site but still there were quite a few explosions. Buildings had a front wall designed to easily blow out so that the rest of the building might survive.

The quality of the black powder was tested by using it to fire a cannon which is now outside Brecknock Museum in Brecon. Only if the powder propelled a cannon ball a specific distance did it make the grade.

Aberyscir Coach House – Brecon Beacons Guide

Big Pit Blaenafon

November 8, 2018 By Valerie Davies

Big Pit Blaenafon

As part of our Brecon Beacons Ambassador scheme we visited Big Pit National Coal Museum at Blaenafon.The site sits high on the Blaenafon moor exposed to the Welsh weather. Below it are the rows of terraced houses where the miners once lived. Now home to commuters from the neighbouring cities like Swansea, Neath and Newport.

When the mine closed over 100 years of coal mining came to an end. It was decided to preserve and share the experience of the Welsh miner in a museum. There are still real ex miners that take you 90 metres underground in the same cage as they used though thankfully quite a bit slower. Our guide Steve had worked in the mines for 35 years and as you can imagine had a few tall tales to tell .

He made you feel like his first guests of the day and that he was really pleased to see you. Some of the stories brought home to you the reality of working underground both for him and the ones that came before. Conditions had improved over the years with machinery taking away some of the back bracking work but it was still a dangerous place to be. Afterwards we went on a tour of the bath house.

The Museum

This facility is now a museum but still retains many of the major improvements of a miner’s life that it brought like showers , clean clothes and a canteen. It even has a water bottle fill station which is quite ironic considering our current move away from bottled water. So proves we can still learn from the past. The Museum is set in a unique industrial landscape, designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000. It is in recognition of its international importance to the process of industrialisation through iron and coal production.

Entry is free which is another bonus.

Aberyscir Coach House – Brecon Beacons Guide

Cribarth Geotrail

October 19, 2018 By Valerie Davies

Cribarth Geotrail

The geotrail is part of the Brecon Beacons UNESCO Global Geopark. The area was awarded this status due to the significant geological formations that can be found here. As part of our Brecon Beacons Ambassador scheme the park geologist takes us up onto areas of the park that are full of these features but quite possibly not that well known as a tourist spot.

Cribarth Geotrail is a good example of this. There is a 3.25 mile walking trail that explores the rocky slopes of the spectacular hill rising above Craig-Y-Nos Country Park in the upper Swansea Valley (Cwm Tawe). The landscape has been carved by water and ice from the folded layers of sandstone and limestone. There are also remains of the quarrying and lime kilns which were such an important part of the 19c industrial landscape. You can walk this area and meet nobody else or indeed hear anyone else. The only sounds being that of the birds that are flying above you or the sheep and ponies quietly grazing around you.

The walking trail

The Cribarth geotrail contains numerous cliffs and areas of very steep ground and loose rock. Other than a couple of short rocky sections this trail picks a way between these difficulties. Some sections of path can be wet even when it is not raining. Both rocks and grass slopes can get even more slippery after heavy rain.

Aside from all the history there are of cause the views for miles around. To help you get the most from these areas and walks there are detailed leaflets to accompany the trail. Full details will be found on the Brecon Beacons visitor site

More details on the whole geopark area will also be found on the visitor site

Aberyscir Coach House – Brecon Beacons Guide

Blaernavon

May 2, 2018 By Valerie Davies

Blaernavon

Today I visited Blaernavon World Heritage Centre and Blaernavon Ironworks. The heritage centre is based in a converted school house. It offers an insight into the industrial era and the production of iron ore that went on to be railway tracks and cannon balls. There are displays and presentations designed to bring this era to life.

A model of the ironworks shows how it looked at the height of its production period. A few of the buildings remain in which examples of the tools remain slowly rusting in the dusty old buildings. The ruined furnaces are still visible today as are the remains of the foundry, cast house and water balance tower that raised wagons 80 feet into the air.

The cottages on site have been staged with items that would have been relavent to different eras. This gives you an idea of what living there was like but without the pollution and heat the 6 large furnaces produced.

History of Blaernavon

The edges of the Brecon Beacons were rich in coa,l iron ore and limestone which were the main raw materials of the Industrial Revolution. Blaernavon came about because of this.

They forged the tools, machines and engines. These were used to build the railways, ships and bridges at the start of our modern industrial socierty.

It started in 1789 when steam was used to power the blast furnaces of Blaernavon. Just 100 years later Sidney Gilchrist Thomas invented a method to remove phosphorus from iron ore to make steel.

Blaenavon was owned by infamous ruthless industrialists but they would have been nothing without the workers to run the furnaces. The work was hard, hot and with small reward but at least housing was provided for some. They were expected to work 12 hour days, seven days a week. You would have found children as young as 5 being put to work which took many years to be banned.

Aberyscir Coach House – Brecon Beacons Guide

Industrial Brecon Beacons

December 28, 2017 By Valerie Davies

Industrial Brecon Beacons

We are probably aware of the beautiful countryside of the Brecon Beacons as we travel around but there is a wealth of evidence of its industrial past. The whole area is quite unique in the geology that led to the lime, coal and steel industries that prospered as a result.

You can see many examples at our world heritage site Blaernavon or the lime kilns at Brecon. An important component is Silica sand.

Silica sand

Hidden away in pockets beneath the surface of this area are caches of a pure white sand. A curiosity perhaps but is it any more than that? Well yes, it is. This sand with its special characteristics is exactly what the industrialists of yesteryear were on the look-out for and when they found it, they opened up pits and carted it away.

Industrial uses

The burgeoning of the South Wales iron industry in the 19th and early 20th century saw the construction of innumerable furnaces for smelting the iron ore. And each of these furnaces had to be lined with heat-resistant bricks. And what is the best material to make these bricks from – pure silica of course, the purer the better. With few impurities the bricks were less likely to crack under the extreme operating conditions. Factories such as that at Penwyllt were set up to exploit the pre silica rock – the basal grit or Twrch Sandstone as we now call it. Quarry that, crush it and re-form it as bricks – a simple enough process once the techniques had been worked out. But the silica rock is tough to quarry and hard to crush. When the proprietors of Penwyllt discovered that nature had done half the job for them, they leapt at the chance.

You see, the silica sand was originally ultra-tough silica rock but natural processes – perhaps tropical weathering in the distant past, perhaps another process – had converted the rock into sand. It had lain there on the doorstep ready to be scooped up. They built a tramway between the silica sand pit which they opened up and the existing brickworks. Other pits operated at various remote spots on the Black Mountain.

Visit these spots today and you’ll see the legacy of an industry which ceased 60 years ago and more. There are some remains, perhaps some rusting iron and a connecting track down the hill. Otherwise it’s a tale of nature reclaiming what was hers.

Aberyscir Coach House – Brecon Beacons Guide