Hello Paul,
I did a search in Google Scholar for "Hill Pits Enclosures Blaenavon", and found a link to the very interesting article written by Laun in the Industrial Archaeology Review, 1979. This can be downloaded for free http://scholar.google.co.uk/.
Regarding enclosures: page 9 states - "Maps (ref 17) prior to the sinking of Hill Pits show the smallholding of Tyr Abraham Harry as two distinct enclosures. The enclosure to the south west (the smaller of the two) is now occupied by part of the tramroad." Regarding the maps, Ref 17 states "Various from 1812 onwards" Just for fun I overlaid the 1st edition OS (1880) map with a Google Earth photo of 2001 (having long shadows). There's a lot of room for errors in doing this - but the the enclosures align quite well on the first image.
A larger area is shown on the second picture. There seems to be an outline of a building or something in the north most enclosure on the 1st edition OS map.
Dennis Hopkins
Today we were at the Pavillion (Communities First) with tutors Paul Huckfield (Outreach Officer), and Charina Jones (Historic Environment Record Manager) at GGAT. We started by deciding that it would be best to investigate 1 of the 6 mentioned sites mentioned last week - Hill's Pit enclosures (we may be more sheltered from the weather).After an introduction we searched for information according to the worksheet - using the Archwilio database, http://www.cofiadurcahcymru.org.uk/arch/ggat/english/ggat_interface.html . We searched for things like St Peters School, and the scheduled monuments and listed buildings (in Legal Protection column). This was designed to give us practice in record searching, we can now go off and search to our heart's content.
Then we went on to Map regression: had a look at copies of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition Ordnance Survey maps of the Blaenavon area (spelt with an 'f' on 1st edition OS). We also had a look at a tithe map from circa 1820s and the information it gives (land ownership, use etc.).To prepare for next week, where we'll be looking at adding and updating Historic Records, we were asked to research any sites where we can add more information for. Particularly investigate the current information available for Hill's Pit Enclosures.Dennis Hopkins
A larger area is shown on the second picture. There seems to be an outline of a building or something in the north most enclosure on the 1st edition OS map.
