Y Filltir Sgwar/The Square Mile: Hill’s Tram Road

In a year long series Tom Maloney, from Abersychan, shows how you can love a place so well it becomes a part of you.

Inspiration can come in all sorts of ways. A small, but significant moment for me was being given my first tin of Lakeland Pencils when I was in the Junior School. I think that this must have been in the older classes that I seem to remember being called Standard III and IV.

Having the tin in my hand was really special. I loved everything about it, the colours of the Lakeland picture and the way the pencils were carefully enclosed in paper on the inside. I know that my love of Art goes back to moments like these.

I have the same feeling when I gaze at the spectacular views that can be seen along Hill’s Tram Road between Garnddyrys and the site of an old tunnel as it skirts around Blorenge Mountain, just below The Keeper’s Pond, Blaenafon.

The Visit Blaenavon Website gives an excellent insight into why this horse-drawn tram road was constructed:

‘Hill’s Tram road, the primitive railway built by Thomas Hill II in the years after he began to manage the Ironworks in 1815  … improved the means by which iron ore and limestone could be conveyed to the Ironworks … and enabled pig iron from the furnaces to be carried to the forge which was opened at Garnddyrys in 1817, where it was converted to wrought iron.’

On a fine day, this is truly grand walking and as walks go not especially difficult as the path is relatively flat along its length. It is one of the few walks that I enjoy without following a circular route, as it simply does not matter in which direction you go as this area is visually stunning everywhere you care to look. Nearby there are quite a number of small ‘pull-ins’ along the road to park up.

Pwll-du

To make a full day of walking this could be combined with a visit to Pwll-du, the focus of last week’s feature and would really give a full appreciation of the World Heritage landscape.

For many, many years I had thought that the stone enclosure at Garnddyrys was nothing more than an enclosure for sheep! Though it is so, so hard to imagine now, in its day this was a place of industry.

After periods of heavy rain, the pond still partially fills and you can visualize how it may once have looked when it served the iron forge that was once located here.

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During the heady days of the Industrial Revolution, this was a place of fiery smoke and iron and of a community that lived and worked at the site. I have to pinch myself every time I explore Garnddyrys, but it’s true, every word, ‘mae hi’n wir, pob gair’ in the Welsh!

Surprisingly, perhaps, the footprint of housing is also still quite visible. Not too far away from the old reservoir is an old dwelling where the front door was literally beside the tram road. I enjoy letting my imagination go here, to hear the voices of the past, the banter and the chat and the clank of the iron wheels on iron rails.

You are never far away from horses, cows and sheep exploring this area and the scent of the countryside is as much a part of the enjoyment for me.

I often think that the sheep act like natural lawn mowers and I am sure that they play their part in maintaining the path.

Sometimes, hidden at first by the spreading bracken, a little flock will appear in front of you walking in a line, take a small diversion, stop and look you over …  and then move on. The things that make you smile!

It is not long before you will come to a stretch of track bed for the industrial highway that is reasonably well preserved.

As with the tram road featured in my articles about the Lasgarn Woodland, you will come to a series of stone sleepers that have the appearance of ‘stepping stones’. Each sleeper has a hole that was used to secure the iron rails with an iron pin. In effect the tram road was a horse drawn railway.

Though they are only a few miles apart, the tram roads appear to have a slightly different construction. The stone sleepers at the Lasgarn Wood have two holes rather than one and I wonder if that small design difference made it stronger.

The highlight of this little walk for me though is the little tunnel that is just a few steps further along.

In the summer, the spreading green bracken obscures both entrances and they could easily be missed as the path takes you on a little detour to the side.

But … remarkably, both entrances are still open and it is quite possible to peer into its depths without actually stepping inside, though care should still be taken to avoid ‘banging your head’!

There is a damp scent of history about its narrow, stone lined walls that were carefully crafted to form an archway along its length.

There are winter days here when the cold, biting winds drive the snow across the hilly slope and for the most part the tram road is quite exposed. You get a sense that this tunnel could easily have been the haulier’s friend giving shelter to both man and horse when the weather turned.

 Hills Tram Road in winter. Animation Tom Maloney

Much of the interpretation on the information boards that are spread across the Blaenafon World Heritage Site feature the brilliant illustrations of Michael Blackmore. His drawings bring life to the past, but also allow you to imagine as well. The little animation imagining a tram emerging from this tunnel is very much a homage to his work, but also pays tribute to all those that worked along this old industrial highway in every season!

What was the next part of the journey? From the tunnel man, horse and tram made their way to the Llanfoist Inclines for the steep descent to the canal, but that’s a story for another day!