IN recent years the extraction of thousands of tonnes of stone has gone hand in hand with the filming of cinema and television blockbusters at Trefil Quarry.

Films The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy and Clash of the Titans 2: Wrath of the Titans, and BBC TV series Merlin and Dr Who have all in the past decade made use of the site’s unique landscapes.

Dr Who episode 'Planet of the Oods' was filmed at Trefil Quarry:

And further opportunities as a film location are now among the future options for the use on quarry land at the site, north of Tredegar, with 220 acres coming up for sale by auction early next month.

The privately-owned land, on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park, is for sale through Newport-based Paul Fosh Auctions, with a guide price of above £45,000. The site contains old quarry workings and is near the Gryphonn quarry, which will remain in operation.

The area has more conventionally been the site of limestone extraction, and has provided employment for generations of quarry workers along the Heads of the Valleys.

The austere, blasted quarry landscape has paradoxically also attracted the makers and films and television dramas, in the process itself becoming something of a star of the big and small screen.

In 2011 it provided a barren rocky landscape, with added derelict temple, for the filming of the Warner Brothers production of Clash of the Titans 2: Wrath of the Titans. The film starred Hollywood A-lister Liam Neeson, along with Ralph Fiennes, Sam Worthington, Rosamund Pike, Bill Nighy and Sinead Cusack.

Previously, Martin Freeman had roamed its rocky backdrop in The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy (2005), and it has also featured prominently in episodes of Merlin, and Dr Who, for the latter being transformed into a snow-covered Planet of the Oods and an Ood Factory.

“The land is well known in the film world as a set, so this may well continue as a potentially lucrative form of income for the new owner,” said Sean Roper, of Paul Fosh Auctions, who is handling the sale.

He added that the site, close to the A465 Heads of the Valleys road, could be put to a number of alternative other uses.

Its recent history as a film and TV location could attract tourists, while a base for outdoor pursuits, and even a solar far, are all possibilities subject to the securing of planning consent.

The land and quarry at Trefil will go under the hammer as lot 56 at the next Paul Fosh Auction, which takes place at the Park Inn Hotel, Circle Way East, Llanedyrn, Cardiff, on Thursday December 4, starting at 5pm.