Swansea, Neath and Port Talbot - Jan 2001
Clyne Woods
The Clyne Valley Country Park is a beautiful area of woodland, and heath where you can roam anywhere. It is excellent because it is really quite wild, despite being surrounded by Killay, Sketty Park and Blackpill, (all suburbs of Swansea.)
A walk through the pouring rain in Clyne Woods only managed to yield one nice picture. This shows the view over the woods from below Keepers Cottage. At least I avoided falling in the river, for once.
Me
Just Me.
Swansea Castle
Swansea doesn't rate its Castle very highly, despite it being in the heart of the city. Railings are cemented into it, to stop anyone venturing near. I still think the contrast of the modern glass BT building behind is pleasing to the eye. Most people disagree, but I'd rather shoot the people responsible for keeping the castle looking nice (or not,) than BT for disrupting its backdrop.
Swansea Docks
This shows the Eastern Docks from Port Tennant. There's more stuff about this area in my pages about the Tennant Canal.
The Roads
These pictures show the Neath Valley Road, and the M4 and A48 at Port Talbot. They may not be traditionally 'good' photos, but I think that some of them are very interesting!
Simeon - Guardian of the Neath Valley Road.
This is an odd night time shot of the M4 at Port Talbot. I left the shutter open for 16 seconds and although the bright areas are obviously over exposed, there is lots of detail on the grass land that appeared entirely black to the naked eye. I think this is mainly infra red. It all looks a bit Martian.
This is more what I originally intended. The lights are the chemical works at Port Talbot and the Baglan Power Plant construction works.
I think clouds look nice in the dark.
The Mine and River Blaenpelenna
The River Blaenpelenna is a tributary of the Afan. it seems to appear out of nowhere near Cwm Blaenpelenna in the forest to the east of Tonna. Here there is an old colliery and great slag heaps lay beside the river. It is very quiet and peaceful there, and if, like I did, you stumble upon the river and the mine from the forest side, it is a great shock. Orange water flows up out of an old shaft, (a deliberate drainage shaft I guess,) and did flow straight into the river. A few years ago an ambitious project from the Environment Agency and Neath Port Talbot Council, with European funding, was started to clean the water. The mine water is sealed from the river and is piped into a series of huge gravity and biological filter tanks.
The mine water cleaning plant is worth going to see in its self, and the change in the quality of the water flowing out is noticeably better than even a year ago. The industrial scars on the landscape here contrast with beauty of the natural landscape.
The slag, as modelled by Mister Johnson.
The river flowing into the decontamination system.
The decontamination pools. The water bubbles up out the mine and is captured in as concrete lined gully. The water is then taken through a large pipe across the river and into the top pool. It slowly flows from pool to pool. and enters the river at the bottom. I think that a mixture of biological and and gravity filtering occur. There's certainly many weird and wonderful coloured plants in the pools. The water starts very orange and ends up slightly orange.
Sim examines the outflow.
The chimney is near the top of the hill, with a stone flue going down the side of the hill to the mine workings at the bottom. I don't understand this one, because I would assume that it was a smoke tower, with a fire burning in the tower itself, drawing air up through the flue, but there is nowhere to light the fire or rake it out. Any ideas?
Sim models the inside of the flue. It is very high and in good condition. Note that the stonework is very clean, suggesting that is could be an air flue, not a smoke flue.
Only the last few metres of the flue have collapsed. Here we can see the remains of the stone and brick building where the flue terminates.
There is evidence of seriously heavy machinery here; big fastening bolts and lots of drive belts.
and lots of Swansea bricks, as modelled by yours truly..
Old Railways
The South Wales valleys are littered with old railways. Some are short mining railways others are goods and passenger lines. The Afan Valley has a line on each side of the river.
The old station at Cynonville. This is just over the road, A4107, from the Afan Valley Country Park Visitor Centre.
The Gyfylchi Tunnel links the old line on the other side of the valley with the mine at Blaenpelenna. The tunnel is quite flooded, so an internal inspection is not highly recommended.
Random Pictures of Port Talbot
From Aberavon sands looking towards the docks.
The view of Margam steel works from the docks.
And back onto the M4 ...
