2400 x 3600 px | 20,3 x 30,5 cm | 8 x 12 inches | 300dpi
Date de la prise de vue:
15 octobre 2013
Lieu:
The Guardian, Six Bells, Abertillery, Blaenau Gwent.
Informations supplémentaires:
Six Bells Colliery was a coal mine located in Six Bells, Abertillery, Monmouthshire, South Wales, in the United Kingdom. On June 28, 1960 it was the site of an underground explosion which killed 45 local miners. It is now the site of an artistically acclaimed memorial to those events, designed by Sebastian Boyesen, and although the memorial is primarily to those who died in Six Bells, it also commemorates human losses in the entire South Wales coalfield. On 28 June 1960, at approximately 10:45, an explosion took place in the West District of the Old Coal Seam, caused by an ignition of firedamp. Coal-dust in the air ignited and the explosion spread almost throughout the district. Killing 45 out of the 48 men who worked in that district of the mine, the tragedy would have been even worse had it not been for maintenance work was being carried out on the O.10 face where otherwise 125 men would have been working. The former colliery site has been landscaped and renamed Parc Arael Griffin. It has its own visitor centre in Ty Ebbw Fach just outside the main entrance. With restaurant, conference and a "valleys mining town experience" room it is open most days. The "Parc" is also now a point on the Ebbw Fach trail. In 2010, a 20 metres (66 ft) high statue called the Guardian was erected near the site of the old colliery to commemorate the 1960 disaster.Designed by Sebastian Boyesen, it is fabricated with thousands of steel ribbons. The statue was unveiled by The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams on 28 June 2010. Known as the Guardian, the statue has been described as "a Welsh answer to Antony Gormley's Angel of the North.