The Iron Mountain Trail

The walk around The Blorenge, near Abergavenny, has become one of my favourites in the Brecon Beacons.  As well as being a lovely afternoon's ramble, there are remains of old tramways and iron workings to explore.  These photos gives a taste of the walk and have already appeared in this blog.

Recently, though, a friend gave me her copy of the magazine Country Walking, which contained mention of a 5 mile walk that starts at The Blorenge and heads in the opposite direction, descending to Bleanafon and exploring more remains of early iron workings. An informative walk map can be downloaded from the Visit Blaenafon website.

The walk started at the Keeper's Pond (Pen-fford-goch) car park. From there we headed up the Blaenafon road for about 250 yards, before veering onto an ill-defined path through gorse. If you click the photo to enlarge it, you might just make out the waymark in the distance.  Clearly, this was not a well-walked route!

 

Evidence abounded of old iron ore workings. Some were in narrow valleys that early miners used to damn, before releasing the water to wash away the top soil and expose the ore.

 

Blaenafon's Big Pit was easy to spot on the opposite side of the valley.  I visited four years ago and spent an interesting few hours there. Unfortunately, for safety reasons, photography wasn't permitted in the mine itself.

There were no such restrictions here, at Blaenafon Ironworks. Arguably the best-preserved works of it's kind, it's a truly fascinating place. Cadw members like me (and English Heritage members) get in free-of charge; less privileged souls pay between £4.60 and £6.60 (depending on age) but, believe me, it's worth every penny.

In one of the cast houses and blast furnaces we were treated to the best audio-visual display that I've ever experienced. Channels in the floor glowed to simulate molten iron as it flowed from the furnace into the pigs, where it solidified – hence the term 'pig iron'. The roar of the furnace was almost deafening; the only thing missing was the intense heat that the poor workers had to endure every day of their working lives.

Back out in the summer sunshine, we made our way up the hillside beside this massive structure – the remains of a water-powered balance tower that once lifted raw materials and wagons of pig iron to a higher level in the works. 

These are the Stack Square cottages, built to house the Ironworks workers and their families. The name 'Stack' refers to a huge chimney stack around which they were built. Only the lowest course of stonework survives.

Four of the cottages have been brilliantly restored to show how they might have looked in 1926, 1944, 1953 and in the final year of their occupation, 1967.

There's also the company-owned 'Truck Shop' where workers could buy basic supplies at inflated prices, adding handsomely to the company's profits. But at least these workers were better off than some, who were paid solely in tokens that could only be spent in the company's shops.

A view from near the top of the balance tower, looking back down to the works. It all looks tranquil now but, as this old map shows, it was once a busy place.

It was time to continue our walk.  Shortly after leaving the ironworks we made our way past a couple of football pitches and a plain-looking hillside.  Here's the view, courtesy of Google Maps, looking back towards Blaenafon.

This is the site of what was possibly the first ever railway viaduct, built in about 1790. It had a stone roof to protect the rails from the surrounding waste tips, but soon fell into disuse and was subsequently buried beneath thousands of tonnes of waste material. It's believed to have looked something like this...

In 2001 Channel 4's Time Team came along to locate it and try to dig down to it. 15 metres below the modern ground surface they finally found the viaduct's roof – the biggest hole ever dug on Time Team.

We now began our long climb back to Keeper's Pond, passing this fine-looking chimney that was once part of a steam-driven winding engine.

Our path took us up Dyne-Steel incline, built to convey wagons of pig iron in one direction and coal in the other.

Finally, we were treated to this splendid view, with Abergavenny in the middle distance and Skirrid beyond it. From here, a short climb on a quiet road brought us back to our starting point.