 Cefn Coed Colliery | |
  Location within Neath Port Talbot | |
| Location | Crynant, Neath Port Talbot, Wales |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 51°42′52″N3°45′33″W / 51.714493°N 3.759142°W |
| Type | Mining museum |
| Owner | Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council |
| Website | Cefn Coed Colliery Museum |
Cefn Coed Colliery Museum is a former coal mine, now operating as a museum. It is located at Crynant near Neath in the South Wales Valleys.
Coal mining in the Neath area began with the development of the port of Neath in the 16th century. In 1743 Herbert Mackworth began mining at Onllwyn, with production rising with the opening of the Neath and Brecon Railway in 1864. David Bevan opened a pit at Blaendulais in 1872, naming it the Seven Sisters after his seven daughters. The Evans-Bevan family then began exploiting the Swansea Valley from the 1870s, and by nationalisation in 1947 owned seven collieries within seven miles of each other.
Cefn Coed Colliery was opened as an anthracite colliery by the Llwynonn Colliery Company during the 1920s. Three attempts were unsuccessfully made to sink shafts at Cefn Coed, but it was not until the Llwynonn Colliery company was bought out by the Amalgamated Anthracite Combine of Ammanford in 1926 and high capital investment made, that a break was made in the hard Blue Pennant sandstone. The first coal raised in 1930, with the shaft and workings powered by a steam engine, fueled by the gas from the old workings.
Like much of western South Wales coalfield, the coal was high quality anthracite. The best coal came from the deepest seam called Big Vein, broken into at a depth of 750 yards. Cefn Coed during its working life at depths of over 2,500 feet (800m), was the deepest anthracite mine in the world. [1] Other seams worked at Cefn Coed included: Peacock, White Four Feet and the Nine Feet. Brammallite was identified in the Dulais seam, by X-ray diffraction by the Natural History Museum, London; making Cefn Coed one of only two sites in all of Wales for Brammallite. [2] However, at such depths and with frequent mining accidents due to methane gas and roof falls, the pit and it soon gained the unenviable nickname of "The Slaughterhouse."
By the end of World War II in 1945 there were 908 men employed. [3] Nationalised by the National Coal Board, continual investment was required to combat the need to keep roadways open at the extreme depths. Changing economics lead to a reduction in the workforce from the 1950s, and the mine ceased production in 1968.
A majority of the men were transferred to the new Blaenant drift mine, built to extract coal form the No.2 Rhondda seam at a shallower depth. One of the two shafts at Cefn Coed was used to ventilate Blaenant, and as an emergency exit, until the closure of Blaenant in 1990. [4]
The complete above ground mine workings remain intact on site, with the steam winding engine from No.2 shaft now electrically driven.
Manufactured in 1927, the Worsley Mesne steam winding engine sits in the boiler house with its suite of six Lancashire steam boilers. [5] The engine has two cylinders with a bore of 32 in (81 cm), while the drum is 10 ft (3.0 m) wide. The drum held two ropes each over 800 yd (730 m) long, with a breaking strain of 234 tons. The cables were inspected everyday, weight tested every three months and replaced completely every 2½ years. Every six months they were shortened by about 6 ft (1.8 m) in order to eliminate wear and stress at the end of the rope. [4]
There is no access to the underground workings within the museum, but a simulated gallery provides full accessibility for blind and disabled visitors. As well as artefacts from the mining industry, the museum also houses a restored and unique gas tram, which ran in Neath until 1920.
The museum is an anchor point on the European Route of Industrial Heritage. [5]
Seven Sisters is a village and community in the Dulais Valley, Wales, UK. It lies 10 miles (16 km) north-east of Neath. Seven Sisters falls within the Seven Sisters ward of Neath Port Talbot county borough.
South Wales is a loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. It has a population of around 2.2 million, almost three-quarters of the whole of Wales, including 400,000 in Cardiff, 250,000 in Swansea and 150,000 in Newport. Generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, south Wales extends westwards to include Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. In the western extent, from Swansea westwards, local people would probably recognise that they lived in both south Wales and west Wales. The Brecon Beacons National Park covers about a third of south Wales, containing Pen y Fan, the highest British mountain south of Cadair Idris in Snowdonia.
Crynant is a village and community in the Dulais Valley in Wales. It lies 7¾ miles north-east from the town of Neath in Neath Port Talbot, situated between the mountains of Mynydd Marchywel to the west, Hirfynydd to the east and Mynydd y Drum to the north.
The South Wales Coalfield extends across Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Merthyr Tydfil, Caerphilly, Blaenau Gwent and Torfaen. It is rich in coal deposits, especially in the South Wales Valleys.
Tower Colliery was the oldest continuously working deep-coal mine in the United Kingdom, and possibly the world, until its closure in 2008. It was the last mine of its kind to remain in the South Wales Valleys. It was located near the villages of Hirwaun and Rhigos, north of the town of Aberdare in the Cynon Valley of South Wales.
Nantgarw is a village in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales, near Cardiff.
Rhondda Heritage Park, Trehafod, Rhondda, South Wales is a tourist attraction which offers an insight into the life of the coal mining community that existed in the area until the 1980s.
Mining in Wales provided a significant source of income to the economy of Wales throughout the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. It was key to the Industrial Revolution.
The South Yorkshire Coalfield is so named from its position within Yorkshire. It covers most of South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and a small part of North Yorkshire. The exposed coalfield outcrops in the Pennine foothills and dips under Permian rocks in the east. Its most famous coal seam is the Barnsley Bed. Coal has been mined from shallow seams and outcrops since medieval times and possibly earlier.
Aberpergwm is the site of a colliery in the Vale of Neath near Glynneath in south Wales.
Chatterley Whitfield Colliery is a disused coal mine on the outskirts of Chell, Staffordshire in Stoke on Trent, England. It was the largest mine working the North Staffordshire Coalfield and was the first colliery in the UK to produce one million tons of saleable coal in a year.
Nantgarw Colliery was a coal mine and later developed Coking coal works, located in the village on Nantgarw, Mid Glamorgan, Wales located just north of Cardiff.
The Astley and Tyldesley Collieries Company formed in 1900 owned coal mines on the Lancashire Coalfield south of the railway in Astley and Tyldesley, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. The company became part of Manchester Collieries in 1929 and some of its collieries were nationalised in 1947.
Gin Pit was a coal mine operating on the Lancashire Coalfield from the 1840s in Tyldesley, Greater Manchester then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. It exploited the Middle Coal Measures of the Manchester Coalfield and was situated to the south of the Tyldesley Loopline.
Bradford Colliery was a coal mine in Bradford, Manchester, England. Although part of the Manchester Coalfield, the seams of the Bradford Coalfield correspond more closely to those of the Oldham Coalfield. The Bradford Coalfield is crossed by a number of fault lines, principally the Bradford Fault, which was reactivated by mining activity in the mid-1960s.
The Tarenni Colliery and its associated workings, are a series of coal mines and pits located between the villages of Godre'r Graig and Cilybebyll located in the valley of the River Tawe, in Neath Port Talbot county borough, South Wales.
Abernant Colliery was a coal mine in the River Amman valley at Pwllfawatkin, 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Pontardawe and 13 miles (21 km) north of Swansea, West Wales.
This is a partial glossary of coal mining terminology commonly used in the coalfields of the United Kingdom. Some words were in use throughout the coalfields, some are historic and some are local to the different British coalfields.
The coal industry in Wales has played an important role in the Industrial Revolution. Coal mining in Wales expanded in the eighteenth century to provide fuel for the blast furnaces of the iron and copper industries that were expanding in southern Wales. The industry had reached large proportions by the end of that century, and then further expanded to supply steam-coal for the steam vessels that were beginning to trade around the world. The Cardiff Coal Exchange set the world price for steam-coal and Cardiff became a major coal-exporting port. The South Wales Coalfield was at its peak in 1913 and was one of the largest coalfields in the world. It remained the largest coalfield in Britain until 1925. The supply of coal dwindled, and pits closed in spite of a UK-wide strike against closures. The last deep mine in Wales, Tower Colliery, closed in 2008, after thirteen years as a co-operative owned by its miners.
Hapton Valley Colliery was a coal mine on the edge of Hapton near Burnley in Lancashire, England. Its first shafts were sunk in the early 1850s and it had a life of almost 130 years, surviving to be the last deep mine operating on the Burnley Coalfield.
