About

The town of Blaenavon boasts an attractive shopping area with craft shops and bookshops and unique food shops such as the award-winning Blaenavon Cheddar Company.

The heritage of the town is also shown by the number of impressive public buildings, including the magnificent Workmen’s Hall (which was built by the workers of the town), Blaenavon Library and numerous churches and chapels, which all played an important role in the life of the town. You can discover more about the history of the Heritage Town by picking up a Digital Tour or a walk leaflet from the Blaenavon World Heritage Centre and exploring this special town.

HISTORY & CULTURE
The Blaenavon Ironworks opened in 1788 and immediately spawned a community for whom life was determined by the mining industry. The seemingly unbreakable bond between the fortunes of the mining industry and the fortunes of the Blaenavon community has been commemorated by the designation of the town as a World Heritage Site.

Today Blaenavon is undisputed as the best place in Britain to explore what the Industrial Revolution really meant for those who lived through it. In addition to the World Heritage Centre, an interactive museum within Blaenavon, (The Big Pit: National Mining Museum) offers visitors a unique chance to experience the visceral conditions of life in the mines. The Blaenavon Ironworks is yet another resource dedicated to the industrial history of South Wales. Used as the setting for the BBC’s Coalhouse, the Ironworks is the best preserved blast furnace complex of its period and type in the world and is one of the most important monuments to have survived from the early part of the Industrial Revolution.

The Iron Mountain Trail is perhaps a less taxing way to explore the legacy of mining on Blaenavon, allowing its walker to appreciate the strange and beguiling results of large scale industry on the landscape. The Pontypool and Blaenavon Heritage Railway offers an eminently appropriate alternative to the trail, ushering its passengers through the heart of the South Wales coalfield. And for those seeking to enjoy the vales and vistas unblemished by the trace of man, the Garn Lakes offer tranquillity, flora and plentiful fauna, whilst Carn-y-Gorfyd has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest.