Site Record

The British Ironworks (1827-83) was built to the design of Decimus Burton. There were four furnaces, of which only the bases survive, with coke and calcining ovens. The office block survives, now roofless, as does the beam engine pump house of 1845, and its chimney base, from the British Ironworks Colliery. The site is approached through 'Big Arch', an impressive 50-yard, 48ft wide tunnel beneath the Monmouthshire Railway and Canal Company embankment of 1879. One mile north west of the ironworks site is a substantial earth and stone faced dam containing a reservoir for the works.

Source: A Guide to the Industrial Archaeology of South East Wales, AIA, 2003

Claire Parry, RCAHMW, 16 August 2011