Port Talbot’s steelworks was the largest in the UK, and one of the largest in the world. At its height, in the 1960s, it employed over 18,000 people. By 2024, the workforce had been reduced to about 4,000.

In 2024, the remaining blast furnaces, No. 4 and No. 5, were decommissioned and are due to be demolished in the spring of 2027. Tata Steel is replacing them with an electric arc furnace to recycle scrap steel.

These blast furnaces leave a conflicted legacy. As well as providing employment for generations of steelworkers, and dominating Port Talbot’s economy, they were also Britain’s largest polluters.

The blast furnace is arguably the most glorious example of function over form. They are massive vertical machines built by engineers. Monstrously beautiful, beautifully monstrous, they are one of the Wonders of the World.