Pencoed Lead Works

Cadw's description

Summary description and reason for designation

The following provides a general description of the Scheduled Ancient Monument.

The site consists of one of the earliest non-ferrous smelting sites in Wales with upstanding remains. A lead works was established at Pencoed in 1754-5, the earliest in the Llanelli area. It was begun at the inititative of Sir Thomas Stepney, who was concerned to develop mining and smelting on his estates. Local coal was used to smelt lead ore shipped up the Loughor Estuary to an adjacent quay. The works closed in the 1770s but may have re-opened briefly for copper smelting after 1802. Two substantial ruins survive which formed the western half of the ‘E’ shaped works, the other half having been destroyed by the construction of the adjacent railway in the early 20th century. The main structure consists of a tall gabled block on a roughly east-west axis, with its west gable and south wall intact to full height. The east gable has two doorways and a tall central window with vertical oculi on each side. A nineteenth-century boiler is inside. A smaller building abuts this, with low walls but a complete gable at the southern end. Remains of watercourses, tracks and spoil tips may survive below ground adjacent to the structures.

The monument is of national importance as a rare survival from the eighteenth-century lead smelting industry, probably the only such site in South Wales with upstanding remains.

The scheduled area comprises the remains described and areas around them within which related evidence may be expected to survive.