An independent gym in the Old Pattern Shop of the ironworks, since 2016. Three memberships from £24 a month with no joining fee and a month's notice to leave, forty-two classes a week capped at sixteen, four trainers who are here every day, and a week to try all of it before you pay anything. Half our members had never been in a gym before this one.
The gym
01
Twelve thousand square feet of converted ironworks: six squat racks, four platforms, dumbbells to 50kg, a cable row of twelve stations, rowers, bikes, skiers and treadmills under the big windows, a turf lane for sleds, and a quiet corner with mats and kettlebells for people who want to be left alone.
Off-peak £24 a month (9 to 4 weekdays and all weekend), full £34 a month (any time).
02
Strength, circuits, boxing, spin, yoga, mobility, a beginners' class and the Sunday hill run, forty-two sessions a week from 6:15am to 7:30pm, capped at sixteen so the coach can see everyone, booked in the app up to a week ahead or walked into if there is space.
Included in the unlimited membership (£44 a month, £28 for students).
03
One-to-one coaching with one of our four trainers, employed by the gym, at one price whoever you choose: £35 an hour, £30 in a block of six, £28 in twelve, or £50 an hour for two of you. Strength, weight loss, getting back after an injury or a baby, a first 5k, a first pull-up. Their pages say who does what.
£35 an hour, £30 an hour in a block of six (£180), £28 in a block of twelve (£336), £50 an hour for a pair.
04
If you have never been in a gym, or not for twenty years: a free week with no card details, an induction with a trainer, the quiet corner with no racks and no mirrors, First Steps classes three times a week, and a written programme that starts where you are. Half the people here started this way.
The free week costs nothing and takes no card details.
05
Boxing Fitness on Tuesday and Thursday nights with three heavy bags and pads with the coach, the Saturday conditioning session with sleds, ropes and the yoke on the turf lane, and one-to-one boxing with Kai. No sparring, no contact, just the fitness of boxing and the people who come for it.
Boxing Fitness and Saturday Conditioning are classes: free for unlimited members, £7 drop-in.
06
A week of the whole gym: the floor, every class on the timetable, the induction with a trainer and a programme to take away. Book it on this website with a name and an email, come in when the desk is staffed, and decide at the end. If you join, the week was free; if you do not, that is the end of it.
Free.
Membership
Off-peak £24 a month for the floor from 9 to 4 on weekdays and all weekend. Full £34 for any time we are open. Unlimited £44 for any time plus every class on the timetable, £28 for students. All three include the induction and a programme rewritten every eight weeks, roll month to month by direct debit, freeze for free, and cancel with a month's notice from the app. The price on the website is the price.
Trainers
Strength and the barbell liftsLevel 3 PT, British Powerlifting coach. Here since 2016
22 clients a week; coaches by numbers and video
Opened the gym with Gav in 2016 and runs the Forge Strength classes and the platforms. Lowri competed in powerlifting for six years and coaches the three lifts from the floor up, with a phone video of every heavy set and a number for next week. Half her clients are women who came in for weight loss and stayed for the deadlift.
Weight loss and the over-fortiesLevel 3 PT, Level 4 obesity and diabetes. Here since 2016
20 clients a week; plain, patient, keeps a food diary with you
Co-founder, former steelworker, lost seven stone in his thirties and became a trainer because of it. Gav takes the people who have been told by a GP to do something, the over-forties who have not exercised since school, and anyone who wants the honest version of weight loss: the food diary, the walking, and two sessions a week they can keep up for a year.
Mobility, rehabilitation and the over-sixtiesLevel 3 PT, Level 4 lower back pain, yoga 200hr. Here since 2018
18 clients a week; gentle, exact, remembers your first day
Joined at fifty-one after a career in nursing and a back injury that a gym fixed. Jan runs First Steps, most of the inductions, the Mobility and Yoga classes and the Thursday over-sixties strength session, and works with two physios in town on rehabilitation plans. She is the reason half the daytime members are here.
Boxing, conditioning and the under-twenty-fivesLevel 3 PT, England Boxing coach. Here since 2021
24 clients a week; loud, encouraging, counts every rep
Boxed for the town club from eleven, coached from eighteen, joined the Forge at twenty-one. Kai runs Boxing Fitness, Saturday Conditioning and the one-to-one boxing, and does the conditioning for most of the rugby and football players who train here. The busiest trainer in the building and the loudest, in the right way.
How we work
Every new member gets an hour with a trainer: the floor, the kit, a written programme for the first eight weeks, and a new one every eight weeks after that at no charge. Nobody is left wandering between machines.
Half the members had never joined one before. No mirrors on the main floor, no music you cannot talk over, a quiet corner, and trainers who ask how your week was before they ask about your deadlift.
Early and late for shift workers, with a trainer on the floor from seven in the morning to nine at night on weekdays. Outside those hours the desk is unstaffed but the gym is open to members with a fob and a camera on every area.
Off-peak £24, full £34, unlimited with classes £44, a month, and that is what comes out of your bank. Students £28 unlimited. A day pass is £8 and a class drop-in £7. Personal training is £35 an hour for everyone, whoever the trainer.
Classes
Forge Strength on the barbell three levels deep, Circuits every lunchtime, Boxing Fitness on the bags Tuesday and Thursday, Spin at 6:15, Yoga and Mobility, First Steps for beginners three times a week, the over-sixties on a Thursday morning and the Sunday Hill Run up the Taff Trail. Every class is capped so the coach can see everyone, and the timetable on this website is the live one, built to be read on a phone.
Members
Never been in a gym in my life at 44. Did the free week, Jan did my induction, spent two months in the quiet corner and now I squat on a Monday with Lowri shouting numbers at me. £24 a month off-peak. The no-mirrors thing sounds small and is the whole reason I stayed.
GP said lose weight or start tablets. Gav sat me down with a food diary, got me walking, two sessions a week, no nonsense. Four stone in a year and the GP has stopped mentioning tablets. Six sessions for £180, same price as anyone else, and he never once tried to sell me a block I did not need.
Unlimited for £44 and we do Boxing Fitness Tuesday and Thursday, Spin Friday, Hill Run Sunday. Capped at sixteen so Kai actually coaches rather than shouts into a mic. Timetable on the website is the real timetable, which is rarer than it should be.
Find us
The stone warehouse with the arched windows and the black steel door, five minutes from the bus station and seven from the train along the Taff Trail, with forty free spaces in the yard and bike racks under cover. Open 6am to 10pm weekdays, staffed 7 to 9, with a fob for members outside those hours.
Off-peak £24 a month, full £34, unlimited with every class £44, students £28 unlimited. No joining fee, no contract, cancel with a month's notice from the app. The induction and a programme every eight weeks are included in all three. Classes are £7 for anyone not on unlimited and a day pass is £8.
Yes. Book it with a name and an email, no card details, come in during staffed hours, do the induction, try every class, and decide on day seven. If you do not join your fob stops and we do not ring you. About six in ten people join.
Half our members started exactly there. The quiet corner has no racks and no mirrors, First Steps is three times a week with eight people, and Jan, who started at fifty-one, does most of the inductions. The daytime floor is mostly over-forties.
Forty-two a week from 6:15am to 7:30pm, each capped at sixteen (eight for First Steps) and coached by one of our four trainers. Book in the app up to a week ahead, cancel up to two hours before, or walk in if there is space. The timetable page is the live timetable.
Freeze for up to three months a year for injury, travel or money, free, from the app or the desk. Cancel with a month's notice the same way, no fee, no form, no phone call to a retention team.
Seven days of the floor, every class on the timetable and an induction with a trainer, booked with a name and an email. Join afterwards at the website price with no joining fee, or do not, and nobody rings you. About six in ten people join.
