Hill pits spoil heap

“I am not what has happened to me. I am what I choose to become.”
Carl Jung
I was intrigued yesterday by what looked like a stone structure behind Hill Pits spoil heaps, so today I decided to explore and find out something about it. The walk up a hardcore track of compacted stone and bricks from Garn yr Erw told a story of the industrial past of this place, the surrounding spoil heaps with their blackened scars spoke of what was sought, black gold, coal. I soon came to the stone structure, a chimney – an old air vent stack, quite a striking piece of craftsmanship in itself. A pit was sunk here in 1830 in search of coal and ironstone to feed the voracious appetites of the nearby Ironworks. Around it was a red ribbon, reminding me of an image I once saw of a Buddhist temple dressed for a celebration. Nearby, semi-demolished walls and heaps of brick and stone rubble point to the once frantic mining activity here that was all but over by the 1890’s, the shafts backfilled in the 1960’s. The Spirit of the place is slowly reclaiming dominion, using the elements to mould a new shape to the surviving landscape.