Down the valley …

From Blaenavon to ‘The British’

I have been back to Afon Lwyd twice since my last post on this subject; once on a grey, dismal and drizzling day and once in the late autumn sunshine. I have now travelled the length of the valley, mostly on foot, to make sure I had a mental map of the area and hence an idea of the extent of this project. This has been useful (and reassuring) but it has meant that I have hurried through the landscape in exactly the way I didn’t want. I am left with impressions where I wanted detail, just to make sure that I ‘covered the ground’, literally as well as metaphorically.

The following reflects this. It is a too hurried, impression of the valley; more of a ‘city-break’ than the travel project I intended.

This piece is the first of two entries that describe my overall impressions of my travels down the valley. This entry takes us half way.

In the north, the high ground appears ‘natural’ but just beneath the shallow roots of the heather are the millions of tons of spoil that were extracted to rip out the valley’s coal.

Where the heather hasn’t yet caught hold, the landscape is shattered and grey. It is not without its attractions though; at least for the trail riders whose tyre tracks are everywhere.

On a cold, damp October day, Blaenavon was empty:

Even from above, there didn’t seem to be anyone about.

Although there were signs of life going on inside:

Heading south along the ridge on the western side of Blaenavon and Forgeside, the landscape becomes gentler although the past is still everywhere underfoot. This rail chair is being gathered back into the earth just as the spoil heaps are.

The north of the valley was industrialised earlier and for longer. South of Blaenavon, the industrial past was dominated by ‘The British’. Originally known as the Abersychan Ironworks after the village at the southern end of the valley, the British Ironworks had a life span of less than 60 years (from 1826 to 1883). Although it became one of the largest in Wales, it was rarely in profit. At its height, there were 6 blast furnaces burning coal from pits dug in the immediate vicinity of the works and making iron rails and bars. Around it developed the villages of Varteg, Talywain and The British – the latter of which now consists of only a single terrace of houses. The works itself has almost disappeared, but not quite.

Until 2016, the site was in private hands and, as such, was considered ‘fair game’ for anyone wanting to remove what metal and dressed stone that they could find. Hence more of the destruction of what was the impressive headquarters building of the company has been achieved in the last 10 years than in the previous 100.

The Cornish Beam pumping engine house, built in 1845, is hanging on

Much more massive and much more resilient is the ‘Big Arch’, a 50 yards long and 48 ft. wide tunnel beneath the canal embankment that is now the main entrance to the site:

Nature is painting its own murals on the brickwork to go alongside those of its human neighbours:

Reflections

In thinking about this project thus far, I am now very much more aware of the differences between going out and taking photographs and going out to take photographs. The difference is analogous to going out for a ride on your bike and going out to train on your bike; the one is casual and unfocussed; the other is with a specific target and/ or improvement in mind. As with developing your physical capacity through training, rushing doesn’t help. A systematic, structured and explicit training programme produces the best results. I realise that the same is true with photography projects.

So far, I have travelled too fast and I have looked for photographs rather than looked and photographed what is there to be seen.

A misplaced sense of urgency has led me to be careless with my camera too, especially in more difficult situations where, for example, I have lost shots through simply not cranking up the ISO on a digital camera that can manage way more than I considered.

A sense of having to get the job done has led me to rely on lazy compositions too. Too many of these shots are predictable; too many were taken in case I ‘missed the shot’ where quite often there was nothing to miss.

Nonetheless, the shots I have taken have made me think; about how time passes through the valley; about what is meant by ‘re-generation’; about how human creativity and optimism are expressed against all the odds. Further exploration of these thoughts will have to wait for now.

The second entry in this pair will look at the villages of Varteg, Talywain and Abersychan. It will also describe my timid first attempts at photographing the people of the area and at street photography in empty streets:

 

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