Seeing as its the week of the Way back when machine and ive never posted a report of Cwm over here heres a collection of pics ive taken of what may have been South Wales best explore from a few years back. Cwm was the first big industrial site i ever visited and ive been here countless times with countless people since, Its always been a bit of a nemisis though with a bust ratio of 7 to 3, but the security guards were always sound and their dog even stopped barking at me by the time of my last visits.
Built in 1956 as part of the NCB's modernisation of the South wales cola field it was built to take advantage of the low sulpher coal produced at the neigbouring Cwm Colliery. The coke works survived the closure of the colliery following the Miners Strike in 1985 it was alos the place where my dads MKIV Ford Cortina was pelted by strikers, he was a pit deputy and was babysittng the mine so it was safe for the colliers to return to work when the strike ended. The coke works were sold off to the management when the coal industry as privatised in the 9's and was later bought by Coal Products Limited. It contiued producing coke for the Steelworks in Port Talbot along with by products like tar and ammonia until 2003 when Llanwern stopped steel production and Corus decided to recommission their own coke works at Port Talbot.
Any way pic time