For 15 years, Susan Fiander-Woodhouse matured her prize-winning cheeses deep within a mine close to her store, drawing on the town’s rich heritage to craft a unique culinary narrative.

The ingenious idea to age cheese in the historical Big Pit located just above her shop sprang from a keen sense of storytelling tied to the area.

“The miners learnt that in a 12-hour shift the flavour of their food changed underground. So we thought it would be a good place to start and trial some cheese ageing,” reflects one of Wales’ most celebrated cheesemakers as she reminisces about her venture’s humble beginnings in a high street of Blaenavon, a town bursting with potential largely unfulfilled despite its world heritage status.

Susan’s cheeses lured people to this small Welsh town. However, in 2021, the National Museum Wales put a halt to this subterranean cheese-aging practice citing health and safety concerns along with “difficult business decisions”.

Susan expressed her love for the town in the South Wales Valleys despite its decline from a “busy commercial centre serving the needs of an industrial community” to a shadow of its former self. She nostalgically recalls the town’s heyday as a “town which was a Victorian masterpiece,”, bustling with shops and a vibrant community, reports Wales Online.

However, she laments the closure of the pits and steelworks which led to the town’s gradual decay. Despite gaining world heritage status in 2000, the expected prosperity never materialised.

The town’s main attraction, the Big Pit – a working coal mine for over a century and now a testament to the town’s industrial past – draws around 100,000 visitors annually. Yet, Susan feels this does little for the town itself, expressing embarrassment when international visitors question if this is what a world heritage town looks like.

Blaenavon, a town that has seen its population stagnate at around 6,000 since the 1990s due to the loss of industry, is now largely deserted. The only major employer left in the area is the Daniel Doncaster site.

Most of the employed residents commute out of the town for work and also tend to leave during weekends, according to Nilesh Tank, a local trader who runs a unique convenience store where he has lived and worked for 14 years.

Tank, who moved from Leicester to Blaenavon for a slower pace of life in a rural setting, said: “The people are friendly here and it’s pretty green. I like places like this more than big cities. Business is pretty slow. At the moment people are keeping their money very close and are focused on paying their energy bills. We’re very quiet, especially in the days. If people want to shop they tend to go out of town.”

His store is one of many in the town that have remained largely unchanged for decades as a nod to the town’s history. It’s surprising to see so few visitors, even on the weekend before Christmas.

Angela Lewis, 72, a lifelong resident of Blaenavon except for a stint in Tunisia, nostalgically recalls the town’s heyday: “When I was a child from the bottom of the town to the top there was nothing you couldn’t buy,” she said. “People didn’t have cars then, we didn’t have one. You had to do your shopping in Blaenavon because there was no other option. Sadly over the years the businesses are all gone and the people are gone and they’ve never been replaced. I think it was the supermarkets over in Brynmawr – out of town supermarkets.”

Reflecting on her own work history, she added, “I used to work in the factory for electronic components – worked there for 18 years. The factories would pay the workers on the Friday and everyone would come into the town on a Friday and weekends. But all those factories are gone now. There was plenty of opportunity back then but not anymore, and people moved away. Now I go into the doctor’s to get my prescription and sometimes I don’t know anyone. I used to know most people.”

Susan, who ages her cheese in the cellar of the Lion Hotel, speaks highly of the area despite the few tourists braving the gloomy weather. They’re drawn by the local history and scenic walks, with attractions like Keeper’s Pond and the Sugarloaf and Blorenge mountains nearby, not to mention the Brecon Beacons National Park a short distance away.

“It’s the clean air,” Susan says, extolling the virtues of the region. “It’s a safe place with beautiful scenery. We’ve got a cottage and smallholding up the top of the mountain where we make a lot of our own produce ourselves. People often move here for cheap housing now.”

Emma McGrath, who used to escape to Llangorse in the national park from her bustling life in Hastings, Sussex, has finally made the move after her son took over her business. She now runs a vibrant sewing shop in what was once Robinson the Chemist, possibly Blaenavon’s oldest store, which remained in one family for a century.

Upon her arrival in 2021, Emma discovered decades-old medicine boxes, a relic she passed on to the heritage centre.

“If money wasn’t an object I’d be in Brecon or Crickhowell,” she admits, sharing her aspirations from her colourful shop.

“I didn’t want a dingy shop space with a flat, I wanted a home,” she explains. “Behind me and above me here is my home. Nature pulled me to Wales but it was the property which brought me to Blaenavon.

“It’s a beautiful old listed building and just needs some care. Look at the rendering outside. Attempts have been made to modernise it but it really should have been left alone. That’s happened across the town. But they’re beautiful historic buildings.

“Because I come from middle England I think perhaps I see it a bit more what’s happened to the place and how people have almost forgotten. I see the damage that’s been done here. But I don’t think many people here do see it. They don’t seem to realise in an awful lot of cases, and I think that’s part of the problem. All of that hard work and all of that pride which just whittled away.”

Emma notes her business doesn’t depend on local customers and she still receives orders for garment repairs from her previous base in England, keeping her business afloat. She also chose this location because she sees potential for regeneration.

“I think it could have a very good future because of where it is located,” she comments. “It’s on the M4 corridor, it’s near plenty of green spaces, and houses are relatively cheap here.”

Rightmove’s latest figures indicate that the average property price in Blaenavon stood at £156,841 over the past year, with terraced houses being the most common sales, averaging £121,498. Semi-detached properties fetched an average of £187,000.

Local homebuyer Emma remarked: “When I was trying to buy here the estate agent told me young people from places like Abergavenny were buying their first homes here.”

Supporting the trend is Blaenavon’s mayor Nathan Matthews, who observed a rising number of newcomers drawn by remote working opportunities and the town’s relatively low property prices compared to the Welsh average.

He noted: “What you are getting here now is some more people moving to the area. The way we work is changing and many people are now working from home for the majority of the week or perhaps all of the time. This is at a time where house prices are still very high across Wales but they are below average around here. That could revitalise Blaenavon and other towns across the Heads of the Valleys. It’s well located – we’re not in the back of beyond.”

However, despite these potential changes, Blaenavon struggles with poor health outcomes, having the lowest healthy life expectancy in Wales. According to a fresh report by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), babies born in the area during 2021 to 2023 are expected to have the shortest span of good health in the country, with men averaging 54.9 years and women just 53.3 years of healthy life.

The most populated part of Blaenavon near the town’s centre was listed among the top 20% most deprived places in Wales according to the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation published in 2019, considering factors like income, employment, health, and education. In stark contrast, a study by the Office for National Statistics reveals that in the nearby town of Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, residents can enjoy over a decade more of good health than their Blaenavon counterparts.

“You can’t get away from the socioeconomic challenges,” Nathan commented. “We don’t have the foundations of a butcher or a greengrocer anymore which is a huge shame. But there are businesses that do well here such as the Lion Hotel. You go in there and it’s incredible to see people from all over the world there.”

“There are disadvantages within the community such as higher proportion of ill health and unemployment. There is a link there between poor health and poverty. Part of the focus there needs to be intervention at an early age to try and get young people surrounded by more opportunities in order for them to make good decisions to live healthier lives.

“There’ll always be challenges and heritage can never be the panacea to all the town’s problems. There are deep issues here as there are in towns across the valleys, but I think heritage has done the town a lot of good and will continue to do it a lot of good.”