Abercrave Iron Works

The Ironworks situated close to the Hen-Neuadd canal dock in Abercrave was built by Daniel Harpur in about 1824. The remains are located at the bottom of the hillside, close to the north east side of the Rheolau Arms public house, and are on private land. The hillside location was chosen to enable raw materials to be tipped into the top of the 15ft ( 4.6 meter) diameter furnace from horse drawn carts.

It is noteworthy in being the first Ironworks built expressly to use anthracite coal, and to do this it required a "blast" of air. This was initially provided by two pistons pushing air through valves into a steel reservoir box, and then through cast iron pipes into the furnace. The driving force came from a 10.6 meter water wheel, but the system only produced around half a bar (7 PSI) of air pressure and was not particularly successful. 

The water was provided by diverting the feeder of the Swansea Canal. Anthracite coal would have been supplied by the Lefel Fawr Colliery at Pont-y-Yard, which was also owned by Daniel Harpur. Limestone, used to remove impurities from the iron, came from the Cribarth mountain, where Harpur also had extensive interests. 

The Abercrave Ironworks first closed in 1829, but when the problems associated with using local anthracite coal had been solved at the Ynyscedwyn Ironworks by David Thomas, it re- opened  in 1855.  There does seem to have been close co-operation with George Crane, the owner of the Ynyscedwyn works as the Abercrave site was at one time known as: ‘Gwaith y Cran’ or Crane’s works. The Abercrave Ironworks finally closed in 1861.