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All this industry required a sizeable workforce, with immigrant labour coming in from all over Wales and nearby England . Housing sprang up in the 1800s, and some still stand at the ironworks site. There is an excellent example of an early row of workers' cottages at Cwmavon. Later the classic terraced streets that still make up much of Blaenafon were built (e.g. D and E Row! ) and the town expanded dramatically. 1		The iron industry, so important to Blaenavon's rise to fame and fortune, deserted the town quickly and completely when things started to go wrong. This industry collapsed rapidly with the coming of cheap steel production - closing in 1900. Later in 1980 the coal industry also abandoned the town with nothing much to take its place. Even the railway closed - 1962 last passenger train. 2
Pwll Mawr just means 'Big Pit', not that many in Blaenafon speak Welsh or have done for many years. It was the first pit in Wales to be large enough to allow two tramways. Big Pit was a working coalmine until it closed in 1980. I jokingly asked my friend, a time-served collier at Blaenafon, if he would be applying for a post at the Mining Museum but his reply was that 'if he never went down the damn place again, it would be too soon' - I am paraphrasing a little.  3		The abundance of coal, ironstone, limestone and timber, all the ingredients of iron production, added to a reliable supply of water meant that the area around was worked from possibly pre-Roman days.  By the mid 1500s, contracts were being exchanged for the exploitation of minerals  at Blaenavon and workers started moving in. By 1748 there were enough inhabitants to send 48 children to the local school. The industrial scars still remain on the ground. 4
Blaenavon as a town is generally agreed to have been founded in 1787, when Thomas Hill, Thomas Hopkins and Benjamin Pratt leased some seven square miles of moorland in Lord Abergavenny's Hills from the Marquis of Abergavenny. They displaced the existing tenant farmers in the bargain.  These three businessmen from the Midlands had a plan to build the first plant in Wales with several furnaces together using the new steam engine, increasing output considerably and at lower cost. The Ironworks site at Blaenafon suited their purpose admirably. 5		Big Pit (National Coal Museum) is a real coal mine and one of Britain's leading mining museums. Big Pit is an exciting and informative day out. First opened 1983 but now much improved! Gulbenkian museum of the year 2005. All this AND the world-famous underground tour — go 300 feet underground with a real miner and see what life was like for the thousands of men who worked at the coal face. In December 2000 UNESCO made Blaenavon - Industrial Landscape World Heritage Site. 6
She told me the she and the children's bookshop are the only remaining bookshops and that the Booktown project had collapsed. Apparently they had been unable to persuade Torfaen Council to continue funding the project. Far from seeing this as the end of Blaenavon as a centre for secondhand books, Joanna sees only opportunity. 'There's considerable interest in the town because commercial property is still so cheap. You could buy a shop  for £75,000 ', she says'. 'A shop with a flat above, where else could you get that for the money?' 7		It would be pointless to pretend that Blaenavon hasn't been through the economic wars over the last few decades.  Now around three quarters of the population are over 60. Property prices are dismal and despite some industry encouraged by grants and subsidies, jobs are scarce. Half the shops may be empty... but ... when tourism has breathed new life into Blaenavon,  this may become a parade of thriving bistros, antique shops and wine bars. Who can tell - Blaenavon has surprised before. 8