# Blaenavon and the lost Viaduct



## Timeshifter (Sep 14, 2020)

The lost viaduct

In the UK, we have a TV series  called Time Team, where actor and presenter Tony Robinson and his band of archaeologists roam around the UK amd Europe digging up all manor of mainstream history in just 3 days.


Typical picture not photo​
Since coming across the mud flood hypothesis, one episode sprang to mind.

The team were attempting to relocate 'the first' railway viaduct which had been abandoned and cover up with 'landfill"  near a small town in Wales called Blaenavon.

Now, Iam not suggesting that this is a mud flood (but could it be?)  what Iam suggesting is how easy it is for man to cover up our own industry without the need of a natural disaster.

This area was completely reseshaped both during and post use of the steelworks and mines. 



That is a big thing to bury...​
Built in 1790, and only in use for 25 years, horses pulled carts along the raillway to the steelworks only a hill away... the whole area was abandoned as a going concern in the 1920s.. less than 90 years later, all trace of the viaduct is gone...

From Waki

' Time Team attempt to find what is reputed to be the first railway viaduct. Built in 1790, in order to move coal efficiently from the mine to the Blaenavon Ironworks, one mountain over, horses drew wagons along its tracks for only about 10 years.Spoil from local mines has not only covered the viaduct, but filled the valleys so completely that it is difficult to find any clues as to where to dig. Thousands of tons of earth are moved to find the top of the viaduct, 12 meters below the modern surface. It is too dangerous to enter, but a camera is lowered for a peek. Elsewhere on the site, the remains of a manager's house and workers' cottages are found. As experimental archaeology, a small blast furnace is set up within the disused ironworks, and a Time Team logo (wooden pattern carved by Victor Ambrus) and cart wheels are cast.'

Eventually the viaduct is found 12 metres down...

More waki...

'The viaduct, estimated as about 40 metres long and 10 metres high about 25 years after being built, disappeared. No records exist of its demolition and the archaeologists found in the final day of the modestly funded excavation to uncover the top of the viaduct, the arched roof of which, under 12–15 metres of rubble and earth, was seemingly intact. For reasons of safety and preservation they dug no further.'

It is now part of  the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape. 

Waki Blaenavon Industrial Landscape - Wikipedia

More waki here 
Blaenavon - Wikipedia


I wonder how many other man made places of old remain burried, due to our own re working of the landacape? Or mud flood...

Time team episode


Apologies for hasty post, will try and pad out later.





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## Archive (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: jd755Date: 2019-06-14 17:09:03Reaction Score: 1


From here; Blaenavon – Blaenavon's Heritage
This bits under the same image on that site.

_Samuel Hopkins bricked up the arches of a viaduct to make homes for the workers. Engraving by William Byrne based on a painting by Sir Richard Colt Hoare (c.1800)

Whilst it is likely that Hopkins lived amongst his workforce in the formative years of the Blaenavon venture, it is clear that he was anxious to ensure that he had a fine home for his own comfort and social display. Whilst the ironmasters had provided good quality housing for the workforce, particularly at Stack Square and Engine Row, the rapid increase in the population of the Blaenavon  area meant that demand outstripped supply and makeshift accommodation was required to house the surplus workforce. *At the same time that Blaenavon House was being constructed, Hopkins ordered that the arches of a local viaduct be bricked up to provide accommodation for the many people who flocked into Blaenavon to seek employment.*_

Always looking out for number one these industrialist or as they call themselves today 'entrepreneurs'. 
Maybe I'm being a tad cynical but its amazing what travels 'through time' and what doesn't.

_A Blaenavon resident, writing some 32 years after Samuel Hopkins’ death, recalled that the ironmaster was:



			…beloved by his dependents and workmen, from his kind and generous treatment of them, and his just views of remuneration for their labour… and when accident deprived a family of the staff upon which they leaned for support, Mr. Hopkins was the first to wipe away the tear of misery and sooth the anguish of the bereaved widow. Doing justly, he loved mercy, and walked humbly with his God.
		
Click to expand...

_The name of this resident remains a mystery.
Really though remarkably little to be found about the viaduct but on the point of the post you are spot on.

When I was growing up in the sixties and seventies the town was dominated by a massive iron works and an even bigger steel works. Today other than an odd bit of wall here and there all there is to tell the young who are not grazing phones that there was once a giant industrial site in town is a few street names. It's frighteningly easy to erase history in a short space of time.


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