Coity Mawr

“I didn’t choose photography, photography chose me.”
Gerardo Suter 
After just over an hour steady uphill climb I reached the old mine shaft entrance on Coity Mountain, overlooking the better-known Big Pit at the base of the old incline. I’d seen the track from below on many occasions and friend A had told me it led to a disused mine entrance, but it reminded me of so many other mountain tracks to the mines that my ancestors would have taken. I found out later it’s Blaentillery No.2 Mine, used in the BBC series Coal House, but not used since about 2007 or earlier. From what I heard at Big Pit the risks are so great – water, various gases (blackdamp, carbon monoxide, firedamp), risk of collapse – I wouldn’t attempt to go in there. Not surprisingly it’s not on the Blaenavon Walks Pack, which has am excellent selection of walks in the area (free from the Heritage Centre in town) and if post-apocalyptic dereliction and rusting bits of twisted metal aren’t your thing  there’s plenty more post-industrial interest elsewhere in the area. The King Coal experience at Big Pit, combined with the underground tour, gave me enough of a sense of what it was like.
For me the walk was about the panoramic view over the valley with the spoil heaps at Hill Pits, Big Pit below, the disused quarry (Coity Mawr) above and the line of the old railway through the boggy moorland. In short an overview of the area to help with the mining side of my family history.
Coity Mawr Quarry nearby dated from the 1830s and was worked for building stone by the Blaenavon Iron & Coal Co., presumably disused by the 1880’s. (Coflein https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/67670/)
Not surprisingly I was alone for the most part, occasionally joined by kestrel, buzzard and a red kite, always an exciting sight for me. I saw on the old O.S. maps a large area above Forgeside marked Rabbit Warren, so there would have been a plentiful food supply for the bigger raptors at one time.
I was intrigued by what looked like a stone structure behind Hill Pits spoil heaps, somewhere to aim for tomorrow.