One Sketch #162) Big Pit, Blaenavon

Down in the dark

The black gold waits

Where no canaries sing

And no candles flicker.

It is there still,

And will wait for all time

If need be.

C is for . . . coal mine. This is Big Pit, Blaenavon, in South East Wales. Blaenavon is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, due to its importance in preserving the heritage of the iron and coal industries in South Wales. Coal mining was of vital importance to South Wales and the South Wales Valleys throughout the 18^th and 19^th centuries, right up to the last decades of the 20^th century. Big Pit is a real Welsh coal mine that closed in 1983, then opened to the public in 1983 under the auspices of the National Museum of Wales.