Photo: Loco Steve from Bromley , UK (CC BY-SA 2.0)
A self-guided audio tour of Blaenavon, the iron and coal town. It begins on the hill at Keeper's Pond, built to feed Thomas Hill's forge at Garnddyrys, and comes down to the ironworks founded in 1789: the row of blast furnaces built into the hillside, the cast houses, the water balance tower of 1839 that lifted wagons between levels, and the workers' cottages of Stack Square and Engine Row. Beside the works, a memorial marks the experiments of around 1878 in which two cousins found how to make steel from phosphoric ore. In the town: Ty Mawr, the ironmaster's house, St Peter's Church of 1804 with its cast-iron font and tombs, the old St Peter's School, now the World Heritage Centre, the Workmen's Hall, paid for by the workers' own levy, and the chapels of Broad Street. The tour ends at Big Pit, the colliery that worked from 1880 to 1980 and now takes visitors underground, and the heritage railway at Furnace Sidings.
13 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 50 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 26 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Keeper's Pond and the Garnddyrys forge, Blaenavon Ironworks, The blast furnaces and the cast houses, The water balance tower, Stack Square and Engine Row, The Gilchrist Thomas memorial.
Ty Mawr, the ironmaster's house, St Peter's Church, The World Heritage Centre and St Peter's School.
Blaenavon Workmen's Hall, Broad Street and the chapels, Big Pit National Coal Museum, The Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway at Furnace Sidings.
Founded in 1789 on land rich in coal, limestone and ore, with steam-blown furnaces built into the hillside.
A lift of 1839 in which water-filled tanks counterbalanced wagons between the furnace tops and the yard below.
Workers' cottages, the company office and shop, and the base of the 1860 chimney stack that named the square.
For the cousins whose trials here around 1878 made it possible to make steel from phosphoric iron ore.
Built in 1893 to 1894 with money the workers raised through a weekly levy, with a library, auditorium and picturedrome.
A colliery worked from 1880 to 1980, where former miners take visitors about 90 metres underground.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 13 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 13 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Blaenavon — the Ironworks, Big Pit and the Ironmasters' Town, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
13 narration points, including Stack Square and Engine Row, St Peter's Church, Big Pit National Coal Museum, The Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway at Furnace Sidings and Keeper's Pond and the Garnddyrys forge. That is about 18 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~2½ hours, plus the drive to Keeper's Pond and Big Pit total, but you walk at your own pace. 13 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.