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County in Wales

Blaenau Gwent

A cluster of hilltop valley towns where a miners' sick club gave a young Aneurin Bevan the blueprint for the NHS.

Key information

County
Blaenau Gwent
Nation
Wales
Population
About 67,000 (2021 Census)
Known for
The birthplace of Aneurin Bevan's NHS idea, ironworks and steel, coal mining, the 1992 Garden Festival
What locals are called
Tredegarians in Tredegar; elsewhere, simply valleys folk
Famous people
Aneurin Bevan, Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock

About Blaenau Gwent

The town that taught Britain how to run a health service

Before 1948, working families in Tredegar paid a few pennies a week into the Tredegar Medical Aid Society. In return they got doctors, nurses and medicines when they were ill, with no bill at the door. Aneurin Bevan, born in Tredegar in 1897 and a former miner, saw how well pooling the risk worked. When he became Health Minister in Clement Attlee's government, he took that idea national. The National Health Service began on 5 July 1948. That is the quiet claim to fame of Blaenau Gwent. A system now used by millions grew out of a valley town's habit of looking after its own.

Iron, steel and a name that means "the uplands"

Blaenau Gwent means roughly the uplands of Gwent, and the name fits. The towns sit high on the heads of the Ebbw and Sirhowy valleys, with moorland above and terraces climbing the hillsides. Iron made them. The Sirhowy and Ebbw Vale ironworks drew workers from across Wales and beyond in the early 1800s, and coal pits followed. Ebbw Vale later became a steel town, and its works opened a strip mill in 1938. Steelmaking ended in 1978, though tinplate production carried on until the remaining works closed in 2002. The towns have since had to reinvent themselves. The old works site is now home to a learning campus and new housing.

Three great politicians, one small corner of Wales

For a small area, Blaenau Gwent has had an outsized share of Labour royalty. Bevan was MP for Ebbw Vale from 1929 until his death in 1960. Michael Foot succeeded him in 1960 and represented Ebbw Vale until 1983, then Blaenau Gwent until 1992. He led the Labour Party from 1980 to 1983. Neil Kinnock, born in Tredegar in 1942, also went on to lead the party. The tradition of fierce debate runs deep. Workmen's institutes and libraries in the valleys let miners read and argue at length, and Tredegar's own library became part of Bevan's education. Tredegar remembers Bevan with the Aneurin Bevan Memorial Stones on the hillside above the town, and Bedwellty Park, with its Georgian house and gardens, is the town's green heart.

The factory that Quakers and concrete built

Brynmawr sits more than a thousand feet up, among the highest towns in Wales. In 1929, Quaker relief workers responding to local unemployment launched the Brynmawr Experiment, with furniture-making, crafts and other schemes to give out-of-work men a living. The experiment's most remarkable legacy was the Brynmawr Rubber Factory, opened in 1951. Its thin concrete domes, engineered by Ove Arup, made it one of the most admired modern buildings in Britain. It later received Grade II* listing, but it was demolished in 2001 despite efforts to save it.

Loss, memory and a miner

Abertillery's most moving landmark is a 20-metre steel sculpture, The Guardian, which stands on the former Six Bells Colliery site. It depicts a miner, and it honours the 45 men who died in an underground disaster on 28 June 1960. The community's memory of mining is long and proud. Brass bands, male voice choirs and chapel singing carried through these valleys, and there is still a strong tradition of song at rugby matches.

Garden festival, rugby and Welsh cakes

In 1992, Ebbw Vale hosted Garden Festival Wales, the last in the series of British garden festivals. It turned a stretch of former steelworks into landscaped gardens and drew crowds from across the country. Rugby is the real passion, though. Ebbw Vale RFC and Tredegar RFC have loyal followings, while Abertillery Bluebirds represent the town in football. Match days end with the valleys classics: cawl, faggots and peas, and warm Welsh cakes cooked on a bakestone.

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