Place:Ebbw Vale, Monmouthshire, Wales

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Ebbw Vale from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"EBBW VALE, a seat of iron-works in the NW of Monmouth[shire]; in the vale of the western headstream of the Ebbw river, at the terminus of the branch railway of that vale, 21¾ miles NNW of Newport. It has a station on the railway with telegraph, and a post office‡ under Tredegar. The forges and the mills of its iron-works are admirably conducted; and these works, together with those of Victoria, 2¼ miles farther down the vale, employ about 9,000 persons."

Ebbw Vale was formed as a civil parish in Monmouthshire in 1894 from parts of the parishes of Aberystruth and Bedwelty. The civil parish was also an urban district until the demise of Monmouthshire in 1974. Ebbw Vale continued first as part of Blaenau Gwent district municipality in the preserved county of Gwent and then in 1996, after Gwent ceased to exist, as the administrative centre of Blaenau Gwent County Borough.

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Ebbw Vale (Welsh: Glyn Ebwy) is a town at the head of the valley formed by the Ebbw Fawr tributary of the Ebbw River in Wales. It is now the largest town and the administrative centre of Blaenau Gwent County Borough (or principal area). The Ebbw Vale and Brynmawr conurbation has a population of roughly 33,000. By itself the town of Ebbw Vale has a population of 18,558 (date of census unknown, but either 2001 or 2011).

In relatively modern times the area was a quiet uplands spot in rural Monmouthshire. With only about 120 inhabitants at the end of the 18th century, Ebbw Vale and the whole area was transformed by the Industrial Revolution.

Ebbw Vale Iron Works, later to become the Ebbw Vale Steelworks, opened in 1778, followed by the opening of a number of coal mines around 1790. Rails for the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world's first public railway, were manufactured at Ebbw Vale in 1829.

At its height (1930s — 40s) the steel works in Ebbw Vale was the largest in Europe, although it attracted very little attention from German bombers during World War II. By the 1960s around 14,500 people were employed. But the end of the 20th century witnessed a massive collapse of the UK steel industry. A strike in 1980 was followed by closures and redundancies which resulted in the dismantling of many of the old plants. In 2002 only 450 were employed in the old industries, and by July of that year the final works closed. Today there are no steelworks or mines left in the area. Ebbw Vale is still recognised for its innovation and contribution to the development of Britain as an industrial nation.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Ebbw Vale.