Full Report for Listed Buildings
The list description is not intended to be a complete inventory of what is listed: it is principally intended to aid identification. By law, the definition of a listed building includes the entire building (i) and any structure or object that is fixed to the said building and ancillary to it and (ii) any other structure or object that forms part of the land and has done so since before 1 July 1948, and was within the curtilage of the building, and ancillary to it, on the date on which said building was first included in the list, or on 1 January 1969, whichever was later.
Summary Description
Reference Number
23022
Building Number
Grade
II*
Status
Designated
Date of Designation
21/03/2000
Date of Amendment
21/03/2000
Name of Property
Bont Fawr Aqueduct (partly in Pelenna Community)
Address
Location
Unitary Authority
Neath Port Talbot
Community
Cwmavon
Town
Port Talbot
Locality
Pontrhydyfen
Easting
279561
Northing
194070
Street Side
Location
Prominently located spanning the Afan valley, to the N of Aqueduct Terrace.
Description
Broad Class
Transport
Period
History
Built 1824-7 by the ironmaster John Reynolds to supply waterwheels at the Oakwood Ironworks. The ironworks was part of the expansion of the iron industry into the western part of the South Wales coalfield from the 1820s, but the considerable investment in outmoded water power, and the lack of knowledge it implies, was symptomatic of the early failure of the works. Little production is recorded for the furnaces, which were sold c1840 to the Governor & Company of Copper Miners. Thereafter the aqueduct appears no longer to have supplied water to the works. Small boats are also said to have used the aqueduct but after 1841 a railway was laid across the deck. The deck subsequently carried a minor road, which is now a public footpath closed to vehicles.
Exterior
A large 4-bay aqueduct of rubble stone with tooled dressings. Elliptical arches are carried on wider tapering piers, the tops of which have stepped stone courses against the arch spandrels. The abutments have similar details to the piers. A continuous band is below the later parapet, which has blue-brick saddleback copings and is splayed out at the ends. The deck is laid with tarmac and is now a path.
Interior
Reason for designation
Listed grade II* as one of the few surviving structures related to the use of water power in the iron industry of the region and among the finest surviving works of civil engineering in early C19 Wales.
Scheduled Ancient Monument (GM393).
Cadw : Full Report for Listed Buildings [ Records 1 of 1 ]
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