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The Lost Viaduct
Blaenafon, South Wales
4 February 2001
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Websites
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Blaenafon
http://members.tripod.com/~Family_Thomas/blaenafon.htm
Fascinating, illustrated tour through the industrial history of Blaenafon by Michael Thomas, who grew up and still lives there. 'My first memories are of lying in bed at night at my Nana and Grampa Price's house in the Lime Kilns Cottages – which have sadly been knocked down now – and listening to the wind whistling around the house after its journey across the town on its way from sweeping off the Coity mountain.' The site contains an aerial photo of Blaenafon taken around 1970, showing the Lime Kiln cottages (excavated in Trench 2) before their demolition.
Blaenavon Partnership: UNESCO World Heritage List nomination
www.world-heritage-blaenavon.org.uk
From the middle of the 18th century the people who lived in and around Blaenafon (or Blaenavon, as the Blaenavon Partnership prefers) played a leading role in the UK iron and coal industries and helped change the world through the Industrial Revolution. The Blaenavon Partnership was set up to conserve the Blaenavon industrial landscape and to seek its inclusion on UNESCO's World Heritage List. This website offers well-presented information on Blaenafon and its World Heritage List nomination, which was agreed in 2001.
Association for Industrial Archaeology
c/o Isabel Wilson
Liaison Officer
AIA, School of Archaeological Studies
The University
Leicester LE1 7RH
Website: www.twelveheads.demon.co.uk/aia.htm
E-mail: AIA@le.ac.uk
The AIA is the national organisation for people who share an interest in Britain's industrial past. It brings together people who are researching, recording, preserving and presenting the great variety of this country's industrial heritage. Industrial architecture, mineral extraction, heritage-based tourism, power technology, adaptive re-use of industrial buildings and transport history are just some of the themes being investigated by members. Every year the Association monitors over 200 hundred applications to alter or demolish industrial sites and buildings. It works with other amenity groups to protect Britain's heritage and represent Britain on the International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage.
Society for Industrial Archeology
Department of Social Sciences
Michigan Technological University
1400 Townsend Drive
Houghton
MI 49931-1295, USA
Website: www.ss.mtu.edu/IA/sia.html
E-mail: sia@mtu.edu
US equivalent of the British Association for Industrial Archaeology.
Visiting Blaenafon
Blaenafon Ironworks
Blaenafon
Gwent
NP4 9RN
Tel: 01495 792615
The Blaenafon ironworks is one of the most complete early works to survive anywhere in Britain. Open seven days a week from Easter to October. Other times by arrangement.
Big Pit
Blaenafon
Gwent
NP4 9XP
Tel: 01495 790311
Also in Blaenafon, the Big Pit mining museum employs ex-miners to take visitors 100 metres underground to experience the world of the coal miner in the oldest pit in Wales. Open from March to October. Other times by arrangement.
Further reading
Industrial Archaeology: Principles and Practices by Marilyn Palmer and Peter Neaverson (Routledge, 1998) hardback/paperback £75.00/£26.00 ISBN: 0415166268/0415167698
This book considers how much we can learn about our manufacturing past by using archaeology. The authors discuss how to use documentary evidence and field techniques to discover how ordinary people lived and worked, and how modern landscapes have been shaped by industrial society.
Fieldwork in Industrial Archaeology by Kenneth Major (Batsford, 1975) paperback £3.95
Written by an experienced amateur researcher, this little book suggests exactly how to go about studying the industrial past. Everything from photography techniques to field survey recording standards is covered.
Industrial England by Michael Stratton and Barrie Trinder (English Heritage/Batsford, 1997) paperback £16.99 ISBN: 0713475633
Absorbing guide to the changes in the economy and in manufacturing in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and their effects on the English landscape, including glassworks, iron works, coal mines, brick-works, car production plants, tin mines and cotton factories. A fresh and fascinating introduction to this important period. Lots of good pictures and discussions of key sites.
Industry in the Landscape 1700–1900 by Marilyn Palmer and Peter Neaverson (Routledge, 1994) £65 ISBN: 0415112060
Two hundred years of industry have transformed the British landscape. This volume enables the reader to reconstruct the landscape of past industry. The authors are industrial archaeologists of national standing whose concern is to use surviving material evidence and contemporary sources in order to study the former working conditions of men and women. Comprehensive in coverage, the book examines fuels, metals, clothing, food, building and transport. It makes clear the tangible elements which form the basis for recreation of past landscapes and demonstrates both their function and the context in which they should be considered.
Perspectives on Industrial Archaeology edited by Neil Cossons (Science Museum, 2000) £19.95 ISBN: 1900747316
Today, we are surrounded by the physical legacy of over two centuries of industrialisation: factories, canals, industrial towns and cities. By the 1950s, some of these relics of early industry began to take on a new significance: they were seen as an archaeological and historical reflection that needed to be captured, by recording and occasionally preservation. Industrial archaeology arose out of a widespread recognition of this need. In this book, distinguished authors review developments in industrial archaeology in Britain from the mid-1950s, when the term first appeared in print, to the present and offer some prospects for the future. Publication coincided with the International Congress on the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage held in Britain in 2000.
The Archaeology of Railways by Richard Morriss (Tempus, 1999) hardback £19.99 ISBN: 0752414305
Britain's railways enabled cheap travel across the length of the country during the 19th century, and opened up new possibilities for all classes. Although much of the system's original infrastructure is still in use today, the earthworks and disused lines criss-crossing the countryside, the ruined bridges and derelict station houses are testament to its former glory. Morriss asks us to look at all these structures, past and present, as remarkable feats of engineering, architecture and planning, and to give them the same archaeological recognition as other monuments from our past.
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