It was important to choose an important historical factor about my local area for this assignment. Wales can be known for many things, Rugby is a huge one, sheep is another and more recently the tv show "The Valleys". Whereas the tv show follows cast that live in the South Wales Valleys, this is not what the valleys themselves are most famous for. I explored the history of the mining industry surrounding the Valleys in the local history exercise 3.5 of this blog (here) and uncovered the important and also devastating past of the area.
As a space, Wales has always been known as having beautiful scenery. South Wales has breathtaking coastlines, striking mountains and countrysides and beautiful deep picturesque valleys. It was important for me to try to capture all aspects of this history I found in that research, from the beauty, to the industry to the devastation.
Not knowing anything first hand about the mining industry at the start of this research, it was a lot of searching to see what was out there that I could photograph. By using some of the websites stated in my blog post, I was able to find out numerous locations of interest from sites with visible stockheads, local museums and countless memorial sites. I also came across many old images of the mines and miners themselves. I was then able to create a route as to where I needed to visit and what I type of images i could create when I got there. I was able to reference some of those old images to the sites I was visiting and will include some in the individual site comments below.
Brief:
To create a series of upto 12 images to show the visible reminders of the Mining industry through the South Wales valleys.
Undertaking the assignment:
Even though I live at a southern point of the valleys, I very rarely venture into any of them. And I really should as a photographer because the landscape and the views are beautiful. I wanted to try to capture not only the scars of the industry on the landscape but also the beauty of it. I was also adamant that I wanted to photograph a mine headstock, as they are the icon of mining. The route that I had planned took two days in total. The journeys between sites were also long, as the valleys actually cover a huge portion of South Wales. And on these days I couldn't have had two more different days weather wise either as it was being very temperamental, so some of the mental images that I had of how I wanted specific images to look didnt come out as planned. But I was able to get to all the sites I was hoping to and got the images I was planning on.
I was originally going to make a black and white collection of images as it would appear like old photos but when I thought about it, I decided against it. My reasoning behind keeping the collection in colour is because even though the images reflect on something so important to the history of the valleys, the images show how that past is seen today and therefore the photographs should show the landscape exactly as it is.
The final collection
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| Welcome to The Valleys - AlCallow |
This image I felt was a good starting point for my series of images. I feel that it shows the pride of the people that live in the valleys today. It has been painted on the top of the Bwlch mountain between two of the valleys.
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| Cwmparc & the old Parc/Dare Colliery site from the Bwlch - AlCallow |
This images is taken at the head of one of the valleys looking down from the valley top. It shows the beauty of the valley landscape as a whole as well as looking down on an old colliery site. This image of Dare Colliery by Frances Smith shows the actual old Colliery, which is now completely demolished, from a similar viewpoint but not so high up the mountain. We can see how much the view has changed from the nineteenth century. I also like how this image highlights the way the houses were built in lines into the valley.
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| Terraces upon terraces - AlCallow |
Another view of Cwmparc, but this time I wanted to really focus on the buildings and the way the houses were built. The colliery would have stood directly at the bottom of this image and run along the length of these rows of houses. I found another image here, again of Parc/Dare Colliery but from a slightly different viewpoint to my image but if you look closely, you can see some of the original houses from this image in my own image, showing these houses are still in use today.
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| The twins of Penallta |
I wasnt aware until I started research for this assignment, that this site existed. This is the site of Penallta Colliery, which lays abandoned and decaying. The two headstocks tower over the new housing estate which has been built over half the old site and the other half of the site is complete with the old industrial buildings. The weather was not at it's best when I visited but I like the eerieness the clouds bring to the image and feel that the high contrast works really well to create a ghostly effect.
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| Navigation Colliery - AlCallow. Permission granted to photograph the site by Friends of the Crumlin Navigation Colliery |
Navigation Colliery is another happy surprise for this assignment and one with an interesting story. I stumbled upon this site driving past it on the way to another site and decided to take a risk with it. As I pulled up there were people out front (as you can see in the image) and I got out to take some pictures but was approached by one of the ladies already there. After I assured her who I was and why I was photographing the building, she explained that the site is now actually private property and that she was part of the organisation that was trying to regenerate the site. She was happy to give me permission to use the image that I had taken for the purpose of this assignment on the condition that I explain who they are and link to their website. The lady was very helpful and gave me a lot of info on the site itself and what they are hoping to achieve but they need donations and volunteers to help with this huge project. Please see http://crumlinnavigation.org/ for more information on this beautiful site and this amazing cause. Here is a photograph of the site in its prime.
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| Waste tip at Tower Colliery - AlCallow |
All the mine sites would create waste heaps and here is one I found near to the site of Tower Colliery as I was wandering around. It shows how high these tips could be 'heaped' in relation to the ground level and were normally piled on the top of the already high valley sides. Looking at this image, we can see that some greenery has been able to grow through this material after all the years it has been there but the black colouring of the waste material is still clearly visible.
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| 'Guardian of the Valleys', Six Bells Memorial - AlCallow |
The Guardian of the Valleys is a 20ft sculpture of a miner by artist Sebastien Boyesen, to commemorate the 50 year anniversary of the Six Bells Colliery disaster (1).
It is situated on Six Bells old Colliery site and has the names of the 45 victims of this disaster around the pedestal the sculpture is placed on. I felt this was a fitting inclusion to my collection. I feel it not only commemorates the lives lost in the Six Bells disaster but also as a memorial to all miners who were taken by the mines of the valleys. I wanted to include the valley sides in the final image, although I wish the weather had been a little better.
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| Victims of the Pantglas School disaster graves - AlCallow |
As a final photograph to my series, I felt I had to include a memorial to the victims of the Aberfan Disaster. The link shows an old image taken at the time and shows the scale of the destruction the slurry heap caused. Aberfan cemetery in located on the side of the valley above the village of Aberfan, near to the site where Pantglas school once stood. The visit to the site was a very emotional one for me as a parent as I'm sure it is for anyone and I felt that I also needed to include this image in this series as a memorial to all those people who lost their lives on that day.
I am happy with the photographs that I have included in this collection and am happy with how I have shown the history of the area creating the place it is today. There are a few less images than I was aiming for, however it was important for me to not repeat myself in what I was photographing and yet to photograph different aspects of the mining industry that are remembered in the valleys. They show that if you look properly, you can still find many indications to our industrial past and that it is still very much remembered in the modern day South Wales.
all images can be viewed in my Dropbox folder here
References:
(1) http://www.blaenau-gwent.gov.uk/leisure/14674.asp
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