Hiraeth 2016: Dydd 16, Big Pit, Blaenavon, Romans at Caerleon

It was good that I was uploading my pics every day as on this day, back in Cymru in the land of my fathers, my SD card failed. I only have a few that I took with my cell phone. We couldn't take pics in the coal mine anyway, and I had already been to Blaenavon. So really, only Caerleon out of Newport was lost. Well, so was the Round Table.

Our group readying for a trip down the mine.

This idea just came to me, but I wonder if "lift" for "elevator" in Britain comes from the industrial use of the 19th Century in these pits. One had to get out of those by lifting up to the surface while in America, we started building skyscrapers to "elevate" us.


Oh, I must also explain that "pit" doesn't have quite the same meaning in as in American usage where we might be thinking of open mining on the surface in a big hole such as the former mountain, now a huge "pit" at Kennecott Copper on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley. A pit in Britain is a mine down a shaft (where the miners usually got shafted). It only gets more confusing as "pit" in Cymraeg is "pwll" or "pool" which also can mean "pit." Nevertheless we went down into the bowels of the earth. And I have already blogged on that here.

I did get this great pic of the map in the visitors center of Big Pit.

Note Blaenavon on the far northeast, the edge of the coal valleys. Llanfoist and Abergavenny are just over the Blorenge.

It was also a rather rainy day as you can see from this one pic at Blaenavon in which I appear.

Professor Tom explaining the iron furnaces.

And here's my only photo of Caerleon. Fortunately it is the Ampitheatre and not the latrines of the Legionnaires that we also visited. Alas, the photos of me dressed as a Roman soldier were lost. I shall return!

Blood and gore entertainment. Maybe also culture nights?
This circular amphitheatre was appropriated by medieval legends of King Arthur and his round table.
But then any dark ages legend would be dreaming of the remnants of a Romano-British, proto-Christian Society.

Just out of Newport. So easy to get to. It calls to me if only to fly there.

Find Excalibur. Seek the Grail
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