Industrial archaeology

There was a welcome in the hillside for those who risk letting their dog off a lead as I made my way past the Whistle Inn pub complete with nine unlicensed off road bikers towards the lower east facing slopes of the Coity mountain above Blaenavon. As the bikers made off splitting up to ride over common land and up the route of the National Cycleway Network I paused to view a disused farmstead encircled by a field pattern of drystone walls and a couple of maturing sycamore trees.

Thereafter the footpath progressed steeply through the typical habitat mosaic of sheep grazed acid grassland and rush pasture. There were a number of wheatear, and a single tree pipit cascaded into a hawthorn tree commanding good views. My destination was a small disused mine on the Coity hillside, one that I had viewed from afar but never found the motivation to make the trek for a closer examination. Now the time was right and I was determined to find the road that leads to this industrial artifact.

The vista from this side of the valley was one that I seldom experience, preferring the to do my birding on the Blorenge side of the valley, so viewing the post industrial landscape from the Coity gave a new perspective. The precision engineered Mile Pond a former feeder pond for Big Pit stood out in all its rectangular glory, another example of mans obsession with tidy sharp edged order. 

Finding the pit road I was struck by how quite it was, a few meadow pipit and an occasional distant singing skylark. A raven became noteworthy when normally it wouldn't. Within reach of the mine the terrain rose steeply again towards its entrance with its gate long gone, discarded nearby to be absorbed into an all encompassing bed of rush. 

Wandering around the remains of this small privately owned hillside mine I was surprised to find the now decaying remains of buildings and mine machinery, as if those who had worked the site had left in a hurry. Miners kit in the form Wellington boots, protective eye wear and well worn part rubberised safety gloves darkened by the handling of oily spanners, were commonplace as I picked my way through the site. Within the canopy of a steel framed building there was a row of small breeze block rooms, some empty others with shelving complete with a good selection of machinery spares, rusty nuts and bolts, filters, couplings etc. In one room I found a female blackbird siting on a nest built on a heating pipe and there were several other used nests from previous years. I spent an hour or so pottering around this industrial relic and not a better hour I will spend for along time.