Ebbw Vale in the context of Heads of the Valleys

Monmouthshire (/ˈmɒnməθʃər, ˈmʌn-, -ʃɪər/ MON-məth-shər, MUN-, -⁠sheer), also formerly known as the County of Monmouth (/ˈmɒnməθ, ˈmʌn-/ MON-məth, MUN-; Welsh: Sir Fynwy), was one of the thirteen counties of Wales that existed from 1536 until their abolition in 1974. Located in the south-east of Wales, on the border with England, its area now corresponds approximately to the present principal areas of Monmouthshire, Blaenau Gwent, Newport and Torfaen, and those parts of Caerphilly and Cardiff east of the Rhymney River.

The eastern part of the county was mainly agricultural, while the western valleys had rich mineral resources. This led to the area becoming highly industrialised with coal mining and iron working being major employers from the 18th century to the late 20th century. Its five largest towns were Newport, Cwmbran, Pontypool, Ebbw Vale and Abergavenny.

The strip mill was a major innovation in steelmaking, with the first being erected at Ashland, Kentucky in 1923. This provided a continuous process, cutting out the need to pass the plates over the rolls and to double them, as in a pack mill. At the end the strip was cut with a guillotine shear or rolled into a coil. Early (hot rolling) strip mills did not produce strip suitable for tinplate, but in 1929 cold rolling began to be used to reduce the gauge further. The first strip mill in the United Kingdom was opened at Ebbw Vale in 1938 with an annual output of 200,000 tons.

The strip mill had several advantages over pack mills:

The West Somerset Mineral Railway was a standard gauge line in Somerset, England. Originally expected to be 13 miles 420 yards (21.3 km) long its length as built was 11+1⁄2 miles (18.5 km), with a 310-yard (280 m) branch to Raleigh's Cross Mine. The line's core purpose was to carry iron ore northwards from mines on the Brendon Hills to Watchet harbour on the Bristol Channel. From there the ore was shipped northwards to Newport where it was unloaded onto railway wagons and hauled to ironworks at Ebbw Vale. The line opened as intended in 1861. Passenger services commenced in 1865. The mines' and line's "period of prosperity" ended in 1875 and by 1883 all mining had ceased. The line lingered on for passengers and small goods until 1898, when it closed.

A new mineral venture was attempted in 1907, for which much of the line was re-opened and a 2 ft (610 mm)-gauge extension was added, but this failed and the line closed again in 1910. A section of the track was used to test and demonstrate an automatic signal warning device in 1911 and occasionally used in that connection up to 1914. The tracks were lifted for scrap in 1917, after which a light railway was laid on part of the trackbed in 1918 to carry timber. This ended in 1920 and the company was wound up in 1925.

Blaenau Gwent (/ˌblaɪnaɪ ˈɡwɛnt/; Welsh: [ˈbləi.nai]) is a county borough in the south-east of Wales. It borders the unitary authority areas of Monmouthshire and Torfaen to the east, Caerphilly to the west and Powys to the north. Its main towns are Abertillery, Brynmawr, Ebbw Vale and Tredegar. Its highest point is Coity Mountain at 1,896 feet (578 m).

The Brendon Hills are a range of hills in west Somerset, England. The hills merge level into the eastern side of Exmoor and are included within the Exmoor National Park. The highest point of the range is Lype Hill at 1,388 feet (423 m) above sea level with a secondary summit several kilometres to the southeast at 1,350 feet (411 m). Both points are marked by Ordnance Survey trig points and are located within enclosed farmland. Early versions of the name include Brunedun and Brundon reflecting an original name of Bruna or Brune, meaning 'brown one'. Dun is a common Old English word for a fairly flat and extensive hill. This name is not connected with the village of Brendon in Devon, the name of which has a different origin.

The terrain is broken by a series of deeply incised streams and rivers running roughly southwards to meet the River Haddeo, a tributary of the River Exe. The hills are quite heavily cultivated unlike their neighbouring upland areas of Exmoor and the Quantock Hills. The Brendon Hills are largely formed from the Morte Slates, a thick faulted and folded sequence of Devonian age sedimentary rocks. An east-west aligned anticline/syncline pair known as the Brendon Anticline and Brendon Syncline folds these rocks. The fold couplet is itself offset by displacement of the rocks on the NNW-SSE aligned Timberscombe Fault System. Over the centuries they have been mined for minerals, notably ironstone from which iron is extracted for making steel. During the 19th century this activity reached a peak with the West Somerset Mineral Railway, including an 800 feet (244 m) incline, being built to take the ore to Watchet from where it was sent to Ebbw Vale for smelting. The main mining operations ended when the mines were worked out towards the end of the 19th century.