Within 20 years the Aberdulais Tinplate Company had expanded with the construction of the Lower Works, some 400 yards to the south, and the original site known as the Upper Works. The two sites were connected by a tramway. Horse-drawn drams ferried materials between them.
Another branch of the tramway ran over the tramway bridge to a wharf on the Tennant Canal, from where the finished tinplate sheets were transported to the dockside in Swansea for export.
A hive of activity
During the tinplate years, Aberdulais was a bustling village. A report by the Children’s Commission in 1842 tells us that there were 138 people working at the two sites, of whom 34 were children aged between eight and 13.
Aberdulais village sat at the centre of a web of routeways. Footpaths and bridges led workers to the tin mills; rivers and canals, tramways and railways brought in iron, tin, wood and coal to the furnaces and melting pots of the valley.