A Welsh Vision
Wales is a land of mountains, valleys and a beautiful coastline. Apart from the many tourist opportunities to try out walking, climbing, sailing or simply enjoy the beauty of Wales, the natural population of Wales has for generations looked to its natural resources to provide an income and work for the families living here. These natural resources are coal, iron ore and slate. Hence the many coal mines and steel industries that once filled the Welsh valleys.
ABV has close links with Wales and is slowly building up a collection of images to illustrate the old and the new. View images
The South Wales valleys and the local coast has provided Welsh people and immigrant workers with work for the last century. Coal and iron ore provided the raw material for the steel works and coal mines. From this other industries and work grew, providing employment for the valleys communities. Out of these communities grew housing, churches, schools and unity.
Now Wales has its own Assembly which is working hard to improve the situation since the loss of these traditional industries. Wales now looks to tourism and technologies to replace the mining of yesterday.
Coal Mining and Steel in Wales
These two major industries changed the face of Wales
Only a generation ago the welsh valleys were a full of large and small coal mines. Pit wheels, slag heaps and coal tips were local land marks. The rivers ran black with coal dust from the coal washing plants. Towns and villages grew and developed with mining families and steel workers as the main workforce.
British Industry - the last 50 years - end of an era
Some of the pictures shown here capture the spirit of Wales and we would welcome hearing from anyone who can supply historical images of working conditions, families, travel and even holidays in Wales. Our aim is to encourage local historical groups and enthusiasts to participate in recording and supplying this information. Please contact us.
Industry has played an important role in Britain and now with the demise of many of the industrial sites in Britain ABV is creating a database of these historical industries.
More information...
Our Images are for Sale in our Online Shop
We have a wide range of images in our library, they are all of a professional standard and available as high resolution (28-70mb 300dpi) or as low resolution for web and multi-media (72dpi). Click to go to image shop. These images can be downloaded directly from our shop with a safe secure e-commerce facility. Sales from our artists images are partly donated to ABV in order to carry out further projects.
PDF Files of some of our Publications
Over the next few months we will be producing local project information in PDF format. See our online shop These will be available free or at a small charge to cover our administrative costs.
