South Wales - The Valleys

In comparison with other British mining areas the Valleys only gained economic importance fairly recently. Mining techniques and productivity levels did not become aligned until the construction of the railroads, which linked the Valleys to the ports of Cardiffmi, Port Talbot, Briton Ferry, Swansea and Llanelli, and enabled export. In its heyday before World War I South Wales possessed the country's second largest mining region.

This region, with an exposed, productive coal-bearing area of 1,004sq.mi/2,600sq.km, extends westwards in a kidney shape from Newport/Cardiff for about 50mi/80km, while from north to south it covers an area of approximately 15.5mi/25km. The long syncline is framed by older layers and only selectively overlain by more recent sediments. Through pronounced mountain folding, coal seams found at certain depths experienced extensive fragmentation into individual fields. The quality of the coal ranges from anthracite, glance coal made into hard coal through the process of carbonization and containing 94% carbon, via lean coal and forge coal to fat coal, which is used for carbonization. Mining succeeded in the deeper valleys by the use of tunneling techniques, with flat shafts, while more exposed coal was removed through open-cast mining. On this coal base arose a prospering iron and steel industry, which at the height of the mid-19th century boom in iron employed more than 15,000 workers in the iron metropolis of Merthyr Tydfil alone. The decline of "King Coal" and the "Iron King" began in the 1920s, when, after vehement strikes and lockouts, one mine after another had to cease production and the great iron foundries had to close their gates. The problem was compounded by competition from cheap foreign imports, old-fashioned mining and production techniques as well as the difficult location of some coal seams, which made viable mechanized mining difficult. Even the strong community spirit of the Welsh trade unions, which proved itself in 1984/1985 - in Britain's longest miners' strike - and again in 1992 could not prevent the death of the mining industry. Today three pits in the South Welsh valleys with fewer than 1,000 miners are the final testimony to the great industrial past, when more than 260,000 men working in about 620 collieries brought in excess of 50 million tons of coal to the surface annually. The steel industry has also been cut back, leaving only minimal works along the south coast of Wales.

Heavy industry, which was based on the initial effect of coal, has left a bad legacy. That the barely landscaped slag heaps are more than just scenic eyesores was made all too clear by the Aberfan disaster of 1966, when one of them, softened by rain, slid downhill and buried a school with 141 children beneath it. Following this the safety of the heaps was increased, and the state approved investments in the rehabilitation of the landscape. Meanwhile some of the heaps have disappeared, with slopes and hills being landscaped, and leisure parks, lakes, new housing areas and business zones being laid out. Educational trails through the mining area provide interested visitors, equipped with protective helmets and miners' lamps, with an insight into these abandoned industries. The process of making good, recultivating and remodeling the valleys, which has begun with varying degrees of success, remains far from complete.