Blaenavon Ironworks
The cottages and the company shop
Cadw
Welsh Assembly Government
Plas Carew, Cefn Coed
Parc Nantgarw
Cefn Coed, Cardiff CF15 7QQ
Stack Square
Some of the cottages in Stack Square have been furnished
for the BBC Wales programme, Coal House, first shown in
October 2007.
Engine Row
Two cottages in Engine Row have been furnished with
original and replica household goods as the homes of
working families. At the end of the row is the company
shop, recreated as it might have looked in 1840. In this
booklet the project designer, Charles Kightly, describes
the decoration and furnishings. We are grateful to the
Radnorshire Museum, Llandrindod Wells, and the Judge’s
Lodging, Presteigne, for donations of some original items.
No 1, Engine Row
is furnished as it might have appeared when almost new
in 1790. It is recreated as the home of an experienced
ironworker from the established ironworks at Ironbridge,
Shropshire, attracted to Blaenavon by this housing, which
was comparatively good for the period. He is imagined
as having a wife and small baby.
He might have brought with him items like the
yellow-painted replica ‘Shropshire’ (Clun-style) armchair,
the replica ‘Shropshire borders’-type bed and the replica
1781 print of the Iron Bridge.
The interior of the main room is intended to convey
modest prosperity. Its walls and woodwork are coloured
with ‘red raddle’ colourwash, made from red ochre pigment
(also used until recently for marking sheep) mixed with
limewash. Raddle decoration still survives in a few Welsh
rural houses.
The occupants are about to sit down to a substantial
meal of boiled leg of Welsh mutton (modelled on a mutton,
not lamb, joint from Radnorshire), with a jug of caper
sauce and a relish of samphire. This plant grows wild
on salt marshes, and was popularly used as a vegetable
throughout Wales and other parts of Britain: being naturally
salty, it kept well and was used inland as well as by the
seaside. It has been cooked on the well-equipped range
(original to the site, but ext