PIT PONIES SLAG HEAP
ponies became massive slag heaps in the valleys of Wales and still dot the landscape to this day.
Many have been incorporated into the scenery, or planted with trees to keep them stable and less of a mark on the lush green hillsides of the valleys. They are a lasting reminder of the long-closed deep mines of Wales and the people and animals who worked in them.
The Penallta pony sculpture is perhaps the most imaginative use of a slag heap in Wales and is the largest earth sculpture in the UK. It is a fitting tribute to the thousands of hardy ponies that pulled millions of tons of black gold out of the bowels of the earth in the hot and dangerous work of coal mining in Wales during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Comparisons can be made to the ancient white horses that have appeared on Britain’s hillsides for hundreds of years, made of trenches filled with chalk and mainly appearing in the south of England.
Coal mining was the driving force of the Welsh economy for decades, with thousands of miners working the country’s deep coal mines until the last one closed in 2008.
The industry left its mark on the cultural as well as geographical fabric of Wales, with more than a million people in Wales working in coal in the 1920s. Today, the figure is just 5,000.
Sultan the Pit Pony will at least keep the memory of the pit ponies of Wales, and the miners who led them, alive, as an impressive and lasting tribute to their sacrifice.