Industrial Heritage
Industrial History
South Wales Coalfield
The South Wales Coalfield is saucer shaped and stretches from the Eastern Valley of Monmouthshire in east Wales, to Pembrokeshire in west Wales.
The coalfield outcrops on the north east rim and the Eastern Valley is the most north-easterly part of this rim. Here, since Roman times, people had been aware that coal was very close to the surface, but, for the next 15 centuries or so, this was of no real importance due to the abundance of timber for fuel and the relatively little use for iron products.
Iron
The need for iron increased as industry began to grow and warfare used bigger and better means of killing: cannons and cannon balls, being an example. The iron ore seams were laid down with the coal seams during the Carboniferous Age and outcrop with the coal seams. During the second part of the 18th. Century and the first part of the 19th. Century the demand for tools and weapons of iron grew and iron works sprang up around the north east rim of the coalfield.
Our Iron Works
In the Abersychan and Garndiffaith area, within two miles from Varteg to Pentwyn, there were four iron works set up: Varteg, Golynos, Abersychan (British), and Pentwyn.
There was a huge influx of labour to feed the ironworks and their associated industries of coal, quarrying, and transport.
Richer ores from other places, the advent of steel, and the changing face of industry generally spelled the end of our four ironworks before the mid 18th Century, and coal became King.
King Coal
The constituents of coal in the South Wales Field varies with the bituminous seams in the East and the Anthracite in the West, broadly speaking. A large percentage of the coal is good for making coke and also for steam making furnaces. There was a huge market for Welsh coal to supply the fleets of the world in the changeover from sail to iron clad, steam powered ships, and, for the next 100 years or so, the coal industry became the main employer in this area.
Most of our local history is that of iron and coal and the people who mined and worked them.