[1] From the car park, cross to the ‘Rifleman’s Arms’ on the corner of Rifle Street. To the left of Rifle Street, a lane gives access to the backs of the houses with lockups on the left along its length. Follow this to the end, where a short, steep climb takes you beneath power lines onto an old spoil tip, now a BMX course. Fork right and climb again, and when a pond comes into view, go through the kissing gate to reach it. Turn left and walk beside the high wire fence of a sports field on your left. The fence makes a slight bend to the left, then as it makes a second bend, you reach a path junction. Go right here, making a short, sharp climb, then walking on to a wire-fenced compound. When you reach it, keep it to your right and continue to the next fence corner.
[2] Now look half-right for a pair of radio masts on the skyline – this is your next objective. Walk ahead and following the direction of the signpost marked IMT (Iron Mountain Trail) and look ahead to see another signpost a short distance away on an obvious cross-track. When you reach it, go right, and as you round the first bend the masts come into view again, confirming your route.
(A) The uneven ground either side of the path is evidence of mineral extraction in the 17th-19th century. Dams were built on higher ground, then the water released, washing away the turf and topsoil to expose the ironstone deposits that were near the surface. There are also numerous saucer-shaped depressions that mark the site of collapsed bell pits, up to twenty feet in depth, from where the ironstone was also mined.
[3] Continue to a fork in the track where you go left, the masts soon appearing dead ahead and you pass a signpost directing you to ‘Blorenge 2kms’. The path climbs gently to reach the road, cross to the car park.
(B) This is known as the Foxhunter car park after the champion Olympic gold medal show jumper of the 1950s owned and ridden by Lt. Col. Harry Llewelyn. The remains of the horse are buried beneath the rocks beyond the car park.
Walk through the car park and on, along the path at the far end to reach the Foxhunter memorial. Now go right, picking up the clear path to the trig. point on the summit of Blorenge. The pile of stones found here are the remains of a Bronze-Age burial mound.
[4] The descent from the summit is made to your left. A brief scramble gives access to a discernable path through the heather. Follow this for a short distance to take a left fork, then descend for about 500 yards to eventually reach a clear track.
(C) The track marks the route of a tramway that carried limestone from a quarry on the hillside, back to the furnaces at Blaenavon. Quarrying here ceased around 1850.
[5] Follow the track left for about a mile, passing a bridleway joining from the right (marked Govilon and Llanfost) to reach a pond known as “The Keepers” accessed via a footbridge. It’s worth pausing here to read the information board. Now re-cross the footbridge and go left, making your way down to the road. Walk left along the road for a few yards then cross to a footpath sign reading ‘Garnddrys 1.2 kms’. Follow the broad grassy path as it bends right and heads gently downhill with fine views ahead.
[6] As the ground drops away on the right, watch for a fork in the path and a signpost directing you right to Cwm Llanwenarth. Take this, down into the valley, eventually passing tumbledown boundary walls on your left. When you reach a path junction, you join the tramroad.
(D) This tramway was used for transporting pig iron from Blaenavon Ironworks via the Pwll-Du tunnel, which was over a mile in length, by horse drawn trams, to a forge and rolling mill situated on the hillside below the Blorenge (The Garn Ddyrys forge where there is still a large amount of slag around on the site). From there, the worked iron continued its journey, contouring the Blorenge on Hills Tramroad and finally reaching the Brecon & Monmouthshire canal via a set of inclines at Llanfoist. The trams also took coal and quarried limestone in the other direction to feed the furnaces. In 1860, the decision was made to transfer the rolling mill to a site closer to the furnaces, known as Forgeside. This allowed for greater efficiency and with the coming of the railway to Blaenavon, a short journey to the port of Newport.
Take the tramroad climbing to the left signed ‘Garn Lakes 3.4 kms’. Follow this as it contours the hillside ignoring the ‘Iron Mountain Trail’ sign to the left, but continuing to reach a quarry where you climb a stile.
(E) This is Pwll-du quarry, worked for its limestone from the early 19th century.
[7] You have a choice of routes here: those with a head for heights can continue with care over the head of the quarry to the far side. An alternative route is to scramble up to your left to reach a wire fence, and then walk with it on your left past the quarry, dropping down to the original path at a convenient point.Great care should be taken on both these routes.
Now proceed in the same direction, boundary left, until you reach the field corner where you go through a wooden gate and climb the path ahead. At the top, go through a wooden gate and continue past the Lamb and Fox pub to reach the road.
(F) Here, until the early 1960s, was the village of Pwll-du, home to about 300 people. There were shops, a school, a couple of pubs and a chapel. This was also the northern end of the tramroad tunnel that ran beneath the hillside in front of you, to Blaenavon. Deteriorating conditions in the village brought its demolition, the inhabitants being rehoused elsewhere. Only the Lamb and Fox has survived.
[8] Cross the road, bear left, and take the broad track up the hill, signed ‘Garn Lakes’. The track is known as The Dyne Steel Incline which was driven by steam and replaced the horse drawn tram road that went thru the Pwll-Du tunnel. As you near the summit the top of a brick building comes into view on the left (which housed winding gear and generators), fork left to reach it, the track soon swinging round to the right and passing a milky pond down to your right. The track takes you behind the building, from where you continue to the crest of the hill and over a broad cross-track before starting to descend the hillside on a direct route.
(G) Open cast coal mining in the 1940s caused the area of devastation you have just passed, although coal had been mined here on a smaller scale for centuries. Your ascent and the descent to come, follows the course of inclines, worked by an engine and wire ropes that hauled the coal-laden trams up and over the ridge on their journey to the canal at Llanfoist.
At the bottom of the incline you reach a relatively flat area with a fenced compound (the site of the mine shaft for New Pit) pass to the left of this, ignoring the waymark, to reach rough ground again where you choose your own path downhill. Continue, to pick up a track coming in from the right and follow it downhill with a smallholding to your right. Tracks join you right and left as you continue the descent, going through a gate to reach the road.
[9] Cross with care and then follow the path over a footbridge. Go straight ahead (ignoring the obvious track to your right) down a grass track to reach a good gravel path. Turn right and with the lake on your left follow it round the lake until you can see the Whistle Inn ahead of you. Leave the path at this point to follow a path up to a gate and gap in the wall, and on to a road. Turn left and cross over the railway bridge to the Whistle Inn. Beyond the pub, the road degenerates into a track, continue on to climb a stile by a farm gate, then when you reach a ruined farmhouse on the right, leave the track, which bears left and walk ahead on a grassy path, which becomes a rough track. As you start to climb, you go over a stile by a gate.
[10] Continue upwards with a fence on your left for a short distance until you reach a surfaced roadway that you follow left.
You have fine views from here down into the valley. The railway, now operated by volunteers on a short length of track, originally ran from Newport via Pontypool to Brynmawr. Passenger services ended in the early 1940s, though coal was still carried until the closure of Big Pit in 1980. Beyond the railway stand the whitewashed miners cottages of Garn-Yr-Erw, once a bustling little village. Further to the right can be seen the winding gear of Big Pit; opened in 1860, it was one of the oldest mines in the South Wales coalfield. It closed in 1980 but three years later, it was reopened as a tourist attraction with visitors being able to take a trip underground. To the right of Big Pit, the area around the large aircraft-hangar buildings is Forgeside. This was the site of the forge and rolling mills relocated in the 1860s. The works still operate in these new buildings, while the incongruous brick building was the electricity power plant, built in 1920.
The tarmac roadway ahead starts to climb up the hill to the mining levels, but before you reach that point, drop down to the left.
[11] Now follow an unsurfaced track contouring the hillside and passing beneath power lines. As the track swings to the right beyond the brow of the hill, you can see on the hillside ahead the line of a descending path. Where this meets your track, and before the track swings left again, take a broad path down to the left. This soon becomes narrow and indistinct in places but if you look ahead, your goal is to the right of the row of conifers in the distance. Beyond rusting iron gateposts you reach a wire fence, follow this right, passing beneath power lines beyond which you walk in water issuing forth from a spring. Continue, going through two field gates, and down a rough track passing paddocks on the left.
[12] When you reach a road, cross over and head downhill, crossing the railway with cycle path alongside, then continue to a right bend in the road. Here, take a roughly surfaced path on the left by old iron gates, down to the bottom where you meet the road again. Follow the road ahead over a bridge, and where the road swings left, follow a narrow path ahead, climbing between two small fields.
[13] On regaining the road, cross and turn right, then walk past the hospital to a road junction. Bear left here and continue to reach the ironworks and the whitewashed cottages of Stack Square beyond.
(H) The ironworks, with its three blast furnaces, was one of the largest in the world when built in1789. All the necessary raw materials – coal, iron ore and limestone – could be found in the hills around the town, and an extensive network of tramways was constructed linking mines, quarries and foundries. As you pass the ironworks, note the massive water balance tower, built in 1839 to raise trucks laden with pig iron to the tramroad. The cottages of Stack Square were built in the late 1700s for the skilled workforce brought in by the ironmasters. There was also a company shop, a source of much resentment amongst the workers as they were forced to purchase all their goods from that one source, at greatly inflated prices.
Now, it’s just a short distance to the end of the walk. Pass The Ironworks and Stack Square (which are worth a visit and free) on the left, then ignoring turnings left and right, continue up the hill, passing a fire station and garage on the right, to reach the car park on the left.