Blaenavon Community Museum

Close to Blaenavon Ironworks and Big Pit in the Blaenavon World Heritage Site is the Community Museum. It is inside the impressive Workmen’s Hall, which was built in 1895 by local workers to provide them with a library, meeting rooms and a theatre/concert hall. The museum is run by volunteers to preserve artefacts and images connected with the history of the town of Blaenavon. The displays record the religious life of the community, its heritage of music, sport, education and worker organisation, and the role of shops and businesses, including the main industrial employers. There is a special display about the historical novelist Alexander Cordell (1914-1997), who was inspired by the lives of the workers in Blaenavon in the nineteenth century.