Industrial Heritage Tour

Our first stop in Blaenavon is at Big Pit, the National mining museum of Wales, where escorted by an ex-miner, you can descend the 300 feet mine shaft to walk through an underground world of coal faces and levels, air doors and stables.  On the surface, the winding engine-house, blacksmith’s workshop and pithead baths complete the picture of a working pit that, at its height, employed 1300 men.

Cyfarthfa Castle 

Next we drive to Cyfarthfa Castle in Merthyr Tydfil, built in 1824 as the home of  ‘Ironmaster’ William Crawshay. This grand castellated mansion, which once overlooked his immensely successful ironworks, contains an extensive collection of fine and decorative art and atmospheric industrial history galleries.

On our return journey we call at the village of Aberfan, where at 9.15 a.m. on Friday the 21st of October 1966, a poorly secured, rain soaked tip of coalmine waste (slag) slid down the mountainside onto Pantglas Junior School, killing 116 children and 28 adults.