© Mapbox · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Boundary data © Cadw
Blaenavon Upper Brick Yard is a post-medieval and modern quarry situated in Wales. The site exploited the Pennine and South Wales Lower Coal Measures Formation, a complex sequence of mudstone, siltstone, sandstone, coal, ironstone and ferricrete deposited during the Westphalian period. These sedimentary strata provided essential raw materials for brick manufacture, with the ironstone and ferricrete components particularly valuable for industrial purposes during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The quarry represents the intensive extraction practices characteristic of industrial South Wales. The varied geology of the site, combining clay-rich mudstones and siltstones suitable for brick production with iron-bearing minerals for contemporaneous metal industries, made it economically significant. Evidence of quarrying activity and associated infrastructure survives across the landscape, documenting the period when mineral extraction drove regional development.
The site is protected by Cadw, the Welsh heritage authority, under reference MM296, recognising its importance as a record of post-industrial heritage. The quarry illustrates the relationship between local geology and the rise of manufacturing industries in Wales during the industrial era, preserving physical testimony to the extraction methods and scale of operations that characterised this period of economic and landscape transformation.
Blaenavon Upper Brick Yard is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference MM296. View the official record →
Blaenavon Upper Brick Yard is a post-medieval and modern quarry situated in Wales. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by Cadw under reference MM296.
Blaenavon Upper Brick Yard dates from the post medieval/modern period, and is classified as a quarry. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Blaenavon Upper Brick Yard 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 MM296.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Aaron Brute's Level and Iron Bridge (0.9 km), Coity Sandstone Quarry and Incline (2.3 km), Capel Newydd, Blaenavon (site of) (2.8 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Blaenavon Upper Brick Yard'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.
Blaenavon Upper Brick Yard stands on Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation And South Wales Lower Coal Measures Formation (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Westphalian. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone, sandstone, coal, ironstone and ferricrete.