Cwm: The Fair Country

For nearly thirty years Ken Grant photographed the South Wales Valleys. His images record the gradual post-industrial transition of the landscape and the communities weathering change—watched by the steadfast ponies who have populated the hills for millennia.

Grant embarked quietly on this series in the mid-1990s, in parallel to his more widely-seen photographs depicting urban working class life in his native Liverpool. Although visually dissimilar, both sets of work are connected by the themes of labour and endurance. 

The title Cwm means valley or corrie in Welsh and steep-sided valleys form the backbone of the images in this new book. The valleys are typically aligned by nature in parallel, running north to south. With the advent of industry in the area in the 19th century, urban and industrial development began to snake in ribbons along the floors of the valleys. Grant’s photographs—taken in locations across the region, including Beaufort, Ebbw Vale and Fochriw—show the green of the hills disrupted by artery-like roads and concrete bridges and rows of workers’ terraced houses; a hill studded in canvas to keep a former coal tip from landslide and tragedy; a playground standing firm as the steel plant that once surrounded it is dismantled. Wild ponies inhabit many of the landscapes and have witnessed what industry did to the Welsh valleys and its people over centuries. 

Collectively the photographs in Cwm create a singular and layered account of a much photographed region—foregrounding beauty, scars and the life that persist despite the weight of an industry's passing.