Digitisation of retreating industrial heritage; modelling the decommissioning of the coal washeries of Onllwyn

Prizeman, Oriel ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4835-9824, Davis, Juliet ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2056-5792 and Tam, Lui ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3159-6006 2023. Digitisation of retreating industrial heritage; modelling the decommissioning of the coal washeries of Onllwyn. The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences XLVIII (M 2) , pp. 1251-1260. 10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVIII-M-2-2023-1251-2023

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Abstract

Digitisation for the purposes of recording cultural heritage and its condition is conventionally associated with the task of documentation for conservation. Occasionally emergency recording will anticipate the potential imminent destruction of heritage at risk. By contrast here, although the heritage status of the site whilst proposed in the 1990s, it was never secured yet the closure and eventual dismemberment of the buildings is a plan that is already underway. The coal washeries of Onllwyn sit within a vast landscape that is now most widely recognised as a National Park. During the last century, however, it was a thriving industrial site. The assembly of buildings used to wash and sort coal prior to distribution were recorded using a terrestrial laser scanner and an aerial drone in August 2022 shortly prior to the closure of a site that had been part of a changing industrial landscape since the mid-nineteenth century. As part of a wide agreement to build a historic narrative for a once large industrial site with a planned closure a comprehensive historical review has been built. This included the acquisition of historic maps but also of numerous historical aerial and terrestrial photographs as well as the collation of films and oral histories. Here pointclouds generated from terrestrial laser scans, photogrammetry from drone imagery and photogrammetry from historical aerial images have been combined in an attempt to create a navigable digital backdrop to the decommissioning of a vast industrial landscape as it anticipates a new future. The aim of the models created is to provide a virtual spatial platform to co-locate memories of a community life that is left centred around a lost place of work.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Architecture Computer Science & Informatics
Subjects:	C Auxiliary Sciences of History > C Auxiliary sciences of history (General) C Auxiliary Sciences of History > CC Archaeology D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) T Technology > TN Mining engineering. Metallurgy T Technology > TR Photography
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Virtual Conservation, Industrial Heritage, Digitisation for decommissioning, Obsolescence
Publisher:	Copernicus
Funders:	5th Studio Architects as part of the historical research for the Welsh Government’s Global Centre of Rail Excellence (GCRE) project
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 June 2023
Last Modified:	20 Jul 2023 02:22
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/160723

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