Tŷ Ebbw Fach is located in Six Bells opposite the car park for Guardian. Designed and built by Sebastian Boyesen, Guardian is the tallest mining memorial in Wales featuring a 12 metre high steel miner looking over the former colliery site. It is a fitting tribute to the men who lost their lives and provides an unforgettable and moving experience for all those who visit.
To find out more about how Guardian was designed and built visit the free heritage centre in Tŷ Ebbw Fach. Two short films capture how the sculpture was fabricated in sections in the workshop of the artist and the huge task of assembling it on site against a looming deadline! For those interested in facts and figures, we have something for you too – did you know that the fingers of Guardian are as long as an adults arm!
We also have some moving accounts by relatives of those men who died and a copy of the investigation report into the disaster together with mining artefacts. But the centre doesn’t just focus on this tragic event, visitors will be able to sit in the Story Chair to listen to stories from people from Six Bells about life in the 1960s – the dances, domestic life and growing up.
Access to Guardian is by a short walk or by bike from the car park off Chapel Road. The paths are tarmaced and are at an easy gradient making the journey suitable for most people with site interpretation alongside the paths. For the more adventurous, paths from Guardian lead to the Ebbw Fach Trail, a 16 kilometre, walking and cycling trail linking various sites of industrial heritage.