© Mapbox · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Boundary data © Cadw
Engine Pit, Blaenavon is a post-medieval and modern coal mine situated in the South Wales coalfield. The pit exploits seams within the Pennine and South Wales Middle Coal Measures Formation, a sequence of mudstone, siltstone, sandstone and coal deposited during the Moscovian period. Ironstone and ferricrete layers within these strata made the locality particularly valuable during the industrial expansion of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when both coal and iron ore were extracted intensively to supply the nearby ironworks.
The site represents the transition from manual deep mining to mechanised extraction that characterised the South Wales coalfield's development. Engine shafts and pumping equipment became essential features of such operations, reflecting the technical innovations required to work deeper seams and manage water ingress in the challenging geology beneath Blaenavon. The pit's infrastructure and landscape remain important evidence of this industrial heritage.
Engine Pit is protected as a monument of national significance by Cadw, the Welsh heritage organisation, and is recorded under reference MM277. The site contributes substantially to understanding the industrial archaeology of Blaenavon, which developed as one of Britain's most important iron and coal production centres during the Industrial Revolution.
Engine Pit, Blaenavon is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference MM277. View the official record →
Engine Pit, Blaenavon is a post-medieval and modern coal mine situated in the South Wales coalfield. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by Cadw under reference MM277.
Engine Pit, Blaenavon dates from the post medieval/modern period, and is classified as a coal mine. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Engine Pit, Blaenavon 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 MM277.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Aaron Brute's Level and Iron Bridge (0.5 km), Coity Sandstone Quarry and Incline (1.3 km), Capel Newydd, Blaenavon (site of) (2.9 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Engine Pit, Blaenavon'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.
Engine Pit, Blaenavon 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.