Blaenavon Ironworks
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| Established | 1789 |
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| Location | Blaenavon, Wales |
| Coordinates | 51°46′35″N 3°05′20″W / 51.77652°N 3.08876°W |
| Owner | Cadw |
| Website | Blaenavon Ironworks |
Blaenavon Ironworks is a former industrial site which is now a museum in Blaenavon in Wales. The ironworks was of crucial importance in the development of the ability to use cheap, low quality, high sulphur iron ores worldwide. It was the site of the experiments by Sidney Gilchrist Thomas and his cousin Percy Gilchrist that led to "the basic steel process" or "Gilchrist-Thomas process".
The ironworks is on the outskirts of Blaenavon, in the borough of Torfaen, within the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape, a World Heritage Site.
The site is under the care of Cadw, the Welsh Government's historic environment service.
The land on which the Ironworks reside was at one time the property of Lord Abergavenny and was leased in 1787 by three Midlands businessmen, Thomas Hill, his brother-in-law Thomas Hopkins and Benjamin Pratt. Work constructing the Ironworks began immediately and included several "luxury" cottages. Blaenavon Ironworks was the first to be designed as a multi-furnace site from the outset, with three furnaces, calcining kilns, cottages, and a company shop.
Archdeacon Coxe visited Blaenavon during 1798–99 and enthusiastically described the small town as an opulent and increasing establishment, which was surrounded with heaps of ore, coal and limestone. The reason for the growth of Blaenavon from a rural to an industrial community lay in the rich mineral deposits found in the surrounding area, which outcropped at the surface making extraction a relatively cheap process. The iron works demanded a skilled and permanent labour force, which the Eastern Valley of Monmouthshire lacked. Previous iron works at nearby Pontypool, for instance, had relied on charcoal and water.
The nature of the work introduced to Blaenavon was different. The changes involved the coal-using technology and the application of steam power, not used until that time in the Eastern Valley. Skilled workers came mainly from West Wales, Staffordshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Somerset and Ireland. Unskilled men, often with families came for the promise of work. The population of the district expanded from a little over 1,000 in 1800 to 5115 in 1840 with 61% speaking Welsh and the remainder English.
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