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There are sketches and drawings of what this used to look
like, which show a scene reminiscent of Dante's inferno, with many people milling
around and great fires casting their red glare over the yard, through dense clouds
of smoke and steam. The excitement of Blaenafon is that given these images, it
is easy to project them onto the substantial existing remains that, apart from
some dereliction, are exactly as they were all those years ago. You can see here
how the furnace (behind the cast house on the right) was cut into the hill face
to enable it to be fed easily from the top, while the iron was tapped at the bottom.
It was run into sand moulds and formed as ingots in a sort of family tree formation,
apparently reminding someone of pigs in a litter feeding from the sow, hence the
name pig iron. |
