Our Blaenavon

Blaenavon is a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage Site and among the most historically and geographically fascinating towns in the UK. We sit 420m above sea level, and it is the source of the Afon Lwyd, the main river running through the county borough of Torfaen, South Wales’s easternmost valley. 

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That's how Blaenavon got its name, as it literally means ‘front of the river’ or, loosely, ‘river's source’.​ It is unique in having both one of the best-preserved late 18th century ironworks in the world and also a coal mining museum providing underground tours. 

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Officially, Blaenavon’s population peaked was at 12,469 in 1921, according to the census.  However, by this point the town was entering into the post-war economic slump so may have already experienced some outward migration - which continued at a dramatic pace through the 1920s and 1930s and then steadily in the late C20th.​

The period 1911-19 was relatively prosperous for Blaenavon, with the Welsh coal industry reaching its peak in 1913 and the First World War fuelling a demand for coal and steel.  While hundreds of Blaenavon men left the town to fight, there was also inward migration from people working at the mines and steelworks and an influx of Belgian refugees.

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The 2011 census shows the population as 6,055, which was the first census to show an increase for 90 years.  And the construction over the past decade of hundreds of new houses means that by the next census, the population is likely to have risen quite a bit more. ​The Blaenavon Industrial Landscape was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2000.