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Black Pins early ironstone workings is a post-medieval quarry in Wales, protected by Cadw under reference GM609. The site exploited the ironstone deposits contained within the Pennine and South Wales Middle Coal Measures Formation, a sequence of mudstone, siltstone, sandstone, coal and ironstone laid down during the Moscovian period of the Carboniferous. These strata, heavily weathered to ferricrete, provided accessible iron ore for the small-scale extractive industries that developed across South Wales during the early modern period.
The quarry represents one of many such workings that supplied the expanding ironworking economy of the region. The shallow, weathered ironstone and ferruginous deposits could be won without deep mining technology, making such sites economically viable from the sixteenth century onwards. The exposed geology at Black Pins allowed direct quarrying of ore-bearing rock from the surrounding landscape.
Today the site remains a tangible record of early modern industrial practice in Wales, preserved within the scheduled monument record. The stratigraphy visible in the quarry face and spoil reveals the geological conditions that made ironstone extraction possible, and the scale of the working demonstrates the extent of local resource exploitation before the industrial intensive mining of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Black Pins early ironstone workings is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference GM609. View the official record →
Black Pins early ironstone workings is a post-medieval quarry in Wales, protected by Cadw under reference GM609.
Black Pins early ironstone workings dates from the post medieval period, and is classified as a quarry. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Black Pins early ironstone workings is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by Cadw — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Wales. The official designation reference is GM609.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Brynbychan Round Cairn (6.5 km), Cefn Merthyr Round Cairns (6.5 km), Remains of Iron Furnace at Cwmaman (6.6 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Black Pins early ironstone workings's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Black Pins early ironstone workings stands on Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation And South Wales Middle Coal Measures Formation (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Moscovian. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone, sandstone, coal, ironstone and ferricrete.