Few small towns have made such an impact as Tredegar at the head of the Sirhowy valley. Tredegar can boast of many breakthroughs. Thomas Ellis, a Tredegar engineer, who worked on the first ever steam locomotive with Trevithick. There was also the 1805 tramroad link to Newport which inspired the Stockton and Darlington Railway and thus Stephenson’s ‘Rocket’. Of equal importance, the first ever deep coal pit in Wales was sunk here. A stronghold of the Labour movement, Tredegar has provided us with some of its most notable architects, including Aneurin Bevan, creator of the National Health Service, and Neil Kinnock founding father of New Labour.
