Mudlarks

“The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Boots and hi-vis on for a wander around Crumlin Navigation Colliery site with BobsBlips today, we’d tanked up with cooked breakfast first of course. It’s a place I’d often noticed in passing on my way up the valleys, but until today not made any real attempt to access. Like many other colliery sites it suffered from vandalism and deterioration over the decades since its closure in 1967.
The Friends of the Navigation, a group of enthusiastic volunteers formed in 2011, hoped to reverse the decline and bring the buildings back into beneficial community use – they are Grade II Listed after all and are iconic landmarks in the area and it would be great to see them restored to their former glory as a living part of the valleys community.
After a couple of happy hours mudlarking I headed off to Tredegar for a coffee and to collect a couple of ice slices from the tea rooms, always an attraction for me. We headed back via Ebbw Vale for Bob to get a shot of the leisure centre, then the miners memorial at Cwm and finally the Packhorse bridge at Aberbeeg before wending our merry way home for the night. Bliss.