Welsh Journals

ing properties which amounted to 259 acres (105 hectares) at a very reasonable price of less than £ 100 per acre (0.4 hectares). In what appears to be the first report of the Directors to the Board and Shareholders of the British Iron Company on 2nd August 1825, a very rosy picture was painted that Abersychan would be making a profit of 20% with twelve furnaces and that the works would rapidly be in production. The report contains over estimates of the minerals, with the iron ore being said to be of exceptional quality and equal to Blaenavon and Varteg. It was also said to be in a vein of 10ft. (3m.) thick with fine clay beneath. Arthur Clark3 states that the Directors claimed "that the minerals under 3 acres (1.2 hectares) alone were sufficient to supply four furnaces for a hundred years, consuming 40,000 tons (40,653 tonnes) of ironstone and 60,000 tons (60,980 tonnes) of coal a year". This seems to be a gross exaggeration for a geological report4 estimates that each acre (0.4 hectares) could yield 15,000 tons (15,245 tonnes) of ironstone and 30,000 tons (30,390 tonnes) of coal. From these figures the area would only be able to supply the four furnaces for three or four years! This report also comments on the state of construction of the works. So far the quarries and some mines had been opened, four brooks had been directed into one water course and the internal tramways had been laid. At this point the plan was to build four furnaces with the provision for the construction of two more. In this vain the Directors said "the ground for the foundations will be completed within one month". The following March 2nd, another Directors progress report was given, stating that the two lime quarries and five large lime kilns were now in operation, clay was being raised for fire and common bricks and that coal was being mined and sold. It also declared that "the excavations for the site and foundations of so large a works are completed". Through these reports it would seem that the project was progressing in an acceptable way. However, R. Cort, who was the cashier at the Abersychan works until 1826, paints a very different picture in his report to the shareholders of the British Iron Company in 1827.5 The first, and probably the most important contradiction with the Directors' reports, concerns the construction of the foundations. Thomas Wilcox was the contractor of the works and in a letter published in the Morning Herald on 19th September 1826, he said, "the foundations were not begun up to April preceeding"; so according to this the foundations were not even begun two months after the Directors said they were completed. When the foundations were eventually started more difficulties arose. A large proportion of the 800 ft. (244 metres) length of the foundations was backed by a 50 ft. (15 metre) bank with no support. The removed debris was then placed on the edge of this bank, this together with water collecting and making the bank even more unstable, caused a massive landslide in 1826, Figure 1. This proved the locals right as they had said that this area had an unstable base. Cort says that this can be seen from the mixed up mineral strata, with upper, middle and lower veins jumbled up together. Before the slip there was a blowing up of the foundation