Ebbw Vale Steelworks

Ebbw Vale Steelworks was an integrated steel mill located in Ebbw Vale, South Wales. Developed from 1780, by the late 1930s it had become the largest steel mill in Europe. Nationalised after World War II, as the steel industry changed to bulk handling, iron and steel making was ceased in the 1970s, as the site was redeveloped as a specialised tinplate works. Closed by Corus in 2002, the site is being redeveloped in a joint-partnership between Blaenau Gwent Council and the Welsh Government.

By the mid to late 1700s, the steep-sided wooded valley of the Ebbw Fawr river was called home by a population of around 120, who worked the valley as farmers. But the valley was about to transformed by the Industrial Revolution, by the building of what became Europe's largest steel mill.

In 1789, Walter Watkins was the owner of a forge in Glangrwney, near Crickhowell, which lacked an adequate supply of pig iron from the Clydach Ironworks. In agreement with two business parters, his son-in-law Charles Cracroft and iron master Jeremiah Homfray of the Penydarren Ironworks at Merthyr Tydfil, Watkins leased land at Pen y Cae farm in the parish of Aberystruth from John Miles. Situated on the northern tip of the South Wales coalfield and located next to the River Ebbw, they had easy access to the basic iron making materials: coal and iron ore obtained by 'patch' working and local drifts and levels, plus water and power from the river. Limestone was to be transported by mule train from Llanelly Quarries, about four miles away.

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