Coal, Iron & Slate

The Double Reduction Mill installed in 1978 produced very thin strip steel for making drinks cans

Demolition of the blast furnaces, August 1978.

The no 2 electrolytic tinplating line was the fastest in the world when installed in 1961.

Fettling an open hearth steel furnace at Ebbw Vale in about 1962.

Underground timbering competition at Cwm Betterment Society Carnival 1956

Coal mining and its landscape, Waunlwyd, 1950s

The new works started production in 1938 and prosperity returned to the town of Ebbw Vale.

The new stripmill produced high quality strip steel at 20 miles per hour & far faster than the hand rolling mills it replaced.

On 30 October 1929 the works were closed. In 1936 they were demolished.

In 1929 a new 1,500 ton hot metal receiver, then the largest in the world, was installed. The works were due to close before it could be used.

Ebbw Vale's inland location necessitated a huge fleet of railway trucks to haul iron ore from the Newport wharves to the furnaces

The Roughing Mill at the Steel Works. The depressed state of the steel trade between the wars has been described as "like entering a tunnel and not emerging until 1938".

The new Nos. 4 and 5 blast furnaces at Victoria produced 2,750 tons a week each.

On St David's day 1927, 52 miners at Marine Colliery were killed in an explosion. The cause of the disaster was never ascertained.

On St David's day 1927, 52 miners at Marine Colliery were killed in an explosion. The cause of the disaster was never ascertained.

During the industrial disputes of the 1920s and the depression of the 1930s jazz bands provided fun and just as important, kept up spirits.

As Marine Colliery expanded so did the village of Cwm where the bulk of the miners and families lived. Station Terrace, Cwm's first major shopping centre, in 1913.

The Prince of Wales during his visit to Victoria No 5 pit in 1918. The colliery had recently been deepened and modernised. After he had been underground he agreed to the colliery being renamed 'Prince of Wales'.

Marine Colliery, 1907: Coke for the furnaces, but the bulk of its coal was exported overseas.

Pride and achievement: Pit Bottom. Marine Colliery, Cwm, c.1907.

In 1907 the company built a third brickworks and production reached 14 million a year.

The company owned four wharves at Newport to import iron ore and pit props and to export iron and steel

By 1907 the company employed 350 maintenance and engineering staff: The Smith Shop in the Engineering Department.

Victoria Foundry, rebuilt in 1902, produced 18,000 tons of castings a year, used both within the works and sold to other firms.

In 1907 the company owned 524 coke ovens and was producing 200,000 tons of coke a year.

Ten hours output of steel billets from the Bessemer Steel Works.

The 750-ton hot metal receiver in the Bessemer Steel Works was the largest in the World when installed in 1905-06.

A new American design blast furnace was built at Victoria in 1903.

Two open-hearth steel furnaces were built in 1898, followed by a further three in 1905-06.

In 1897 a spring making shop was built to make railway carriage springs.

The export market was the mainstay of the company. Cardiff Docks, early twentieth century

The new pits sunk from the 1870s onwards were much deeper than the older collieries so that they could reach new reserves and the steam coal seams. The shaft of Victoria No. 5 (Prince of Wales) Colliery.

Waunlwyd Colliery. At the turn of the century two trainloads of coal from this colliery went to Crewe everyday to power the locomotives of the L.M.S.

The rolling mills about 1900.

One of the works' main products was rails; steel replaced wrought iron in the 1870s and in 1881 wrought iron puddling ceased at Ebbw Vale. The Bessemer steel converters kept the works going through the 1880s.

The last act of expansion was the rebuilding of the two Victoria Furnaces in 1882.

The four furnaces of Ebbw Vale were rebuilt in 1871-72, increasing production to 800 tons per week per furnace

In 1866 the "Darby" blast furnace blowing engine was installed, the largest in the world.

Sir Henry Bessemer paid the Ebbw Vale Company £30,000 for their patents on steel making (George Parry received £10,000) and in 1866-68 the company erected six Bessemer Converters to make steel, one of the first two installations in Britain.

One of George Parry, the works chemist, inventions was the "cap and cone" to close the top of the blast furnace to retain heat. It was briefly lowered during charging.

Much of the company's pig iron production was converted to wrought iron in 100 puddling furnaces.

Abersychan Ironworks shown here in 1866 was bought by the Ebbw Vale Company in 1852. The company's other works probably resembled it, although their buildings were not as ornate.

Ebbw Vale experimented with locomotives from 1829 and was one of the first South Wales ironworks to do so. This is the Tredegar Iron Company's locomotive 'St David' in 1854.

The Ebbw Vale Company built many rows of homes for its workers, Gantra Row, intended for colliers, accommodated one family in the upper two floors of each house and another in the basement.

No. 6 pit, Victoria, sank in 1838 provided coke for the Victoria Ironworks. Women were prohibited from working underground in 1842 but a small number continued to work on the surface until the early twentieth century.

The earliest coal and ironstone mines were "patches" or small opencast pits.

The early iron industry of South Wales was small scale and rural; blast furnaces at Clydach Ironworks, 1813.

Holing in the Gwern Y Cae Seam, Sirhowy No. 7 Pit, 1898.