Parc Slip Colliery was a coal mine near situated at Aberkenfig, near Tondu in Bridgend County Borough, Wales.
Parc Slip Colliery was a coal mine near situated at Aberkenfig, near Tondu in Bridgend County Borough, Wales.
This pit was opened in the 1860s by John Brogden and Sons. In 1872 Brogdens merged with the Llynfi Coal and Iron Company Ltd to make the Llynfi, Tondu and Ogmore Coal and Iron Company. This failed in 1878. Eventually the mine was taken over by North's Navigation Ltd. . [1] They had to work the difficult geology near the southern outcrop.
Closed in 1904, the colliery is remembered for a mining accident that occurred at 8.20 am on 26 August 1892 as 146 men and boys were working within the mine. This was the day of the annual St Mary Hill Fair and a fine day with everyone looking forward to a day of relaxation, but they all heard the explosion and knew immediately what it meant.
The explosion was apparently caused by a hole in one of the workers' Davy lamps. Rescue attempts were hampered by roof falls, but by 4pm 42 miners had been brought out alive, some of whom died later of their injuries. The final death toll was 112 men and boys. [2]
Redeveloped by the National Coal Board in the 1960s as an opencast mine, the site enveloped the entire working of the former colliery, eventually covering a site size of over 300acres, when it became known as the Margam Opencast Mine.
After the privatisation of British Coal, the site was mothballed, before being reopened in 2001 by Celtic Energy as a land reclamation scheme until 2008, when all coal extraction ceased.
As part of the land reclamation agreement, Celtic Energy were responsible for the land restoration as it originally was. After mining ceased in 2008, a series of legal cases were undertaken by both Bridgend County Borough Council and the Welsh Assembly Government against Celtic Energy. This culminated in 2013 with the Serious Fraud Office bringing charges against two former directors of Celtic Energy and four other individuals, who it was alleged had conspired to move the ownership of Parc Slip and five other sites to companies registered in the British Virgin Islands, to avoid the costs of land restoration. The cases were eventually dismissed by the High Court in late 2014. [3]
In 2016, in light of the large scale flood within the former opencast workings, Celtic Energy proposed an alternative restoration scheme to Bridgend County Council. This would remove the structures and infrastructure of the former workings, reduce the size and scale of the flooded former opencast workings, and reshape some of the above ground tip mounds, together with some seeding which would then be landscaped by the Council. [4]
Accepted by the Council, the site is now a nature reserve with a mix of habitats including grassland, woodland and wetlands, which is managed by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales. [5]
Maesteg is a town and community in Bridgend County Borough, Wales. Maesteg lies at the northernmost end of the Llynfi Valley, close to the border with Neath Port Talbot. In 2011, Maesteg had a population of 20,612. The English translation of Maesteg is 'fair field'.
Bridgend County Borough is a county borough in the south-east of Wales. The county borough has a total population of 139,200 people, and contains the town of Bridgend, after which it is named. Its members of the Senedd are Sarah Murphy MS, representing the Bridgend Constituency, and Huw Irranca-Davies MS representing the Ogmore Constituency, and its members of the UK parliament are Jamie Wallis and Chris Elmore.
The River Ogmore is a river in South Wales that is popular with anglers. It runs generally from north to south from the Ogmore Vale and Gilfach Goch, past Bridgend and Ogmore. The River Ogmore rises at Craig Ogwr in the Ogmore Valley as the Ogwr Fawr before it links with the Ogwr Fach at Blackmill. The River Llynfi, the River Garw and finally the River Ewenny in its estuary are all tributaries of the Ogmore which flows into the sea between Ogmore-by-Sea and the Merthyr Mawr sand-dunes.
Tondu is a village in Bridgend County Borough, Wales, located about 3 miles (4.8 km) north of the town of Bridgend, in the community of Ynysawdre.
The River Llynfi, is one of three main tributaries of the River Ogmore.
The Maesteg Line is a commuter rail line in South Wales from Bridgend to Maesteg. Services usually operate from Maesteg to Cheltenham Spa and Cardiff Central via the South Wales Main Line and Gloucester to Newport Line.
The Garw Valley Railway is the trading name of the Bridgend Valleys Railway Company Limited. It operates a short section of 4 ft 8+1⁄2 instandard gauge railway located in South Wales, which is being recreated as a heritage railway. Formerly part of the Llynvi and Ogmore Railway (L&OR) and built by the Great Western Railway (GWR), the line was used for freight and passenger services, with most of the track still in place between Brynmenyn and Pontycymer. The project currently has a train shed at Pontycymer, and hopes to initially offer brake van rides between Pontycymer and Pant-y-Gog, a distance of 0.5 miles (0.8 km).
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.
Aberkenfig is a village located in the County Borough of Bridgend, Wales to the north of Bridgend town. It is in the community of Newcastle Higher.
In 1861 the Llynvi Valley Railway was opened in Glamorganshire, Wales, to convey mineral products to the Bristol Channel at Porthcawl. It adopted an earlier tramroad, the Duffryn Llynvi and Porthcawl Railway. The Llynvi and Ogmore Railway was opened in 1865, and the two companies amalgamated to form the Llynvi and Ogmore Railway in 1866. At first Porthcawl harbour was an important destination for onward transport, but this soon declined.
The Ffos-y-fran Land Reclamation Scheme was a major opencast coaling operation to the north-east of Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales. It was the last major opencast mine in the UK, and it shut down in November 2023 with restoration planned to start in 2024.
Sarn is a village in Bridgend County Borough, Wales, about three miles north of Bridgend and which lies just east of the confluence of the Ogmore and Llynfi rivers. It is located to the east of Aberkenfig, south of Brynmenyn, and south-east of Tondu. It is around 15 minutes' walk from the M4 and the McArthurGlen Group Bridgend Designer Outlet.
Ogmore Vale is a village in the county borough of Bridgend, Wales on the River Ogmore. The village's main source of income came from coal mining. Up until the year 1865, the Ogmore valley was a quiet, isolated, rural hill farming community of less than ten farms and a few cottages. Today, along with Nantymoel and Price Town it makes up the community of Ogmore Valley.
Bryncethin is a small village and electoral ward in the County Borough of Bridgend, South Wales, located just north of Junction 36 of the M4 Motorway and approximately 3 miles north of the county town of Bridgend. The population of the ward was 1,319 in 2011.
John Brogden and Sons was a firm of Railway Contractors, Iron and Coal Miners and Iron Smelters operating, initially as a general contractor, from roughly 1828 until its bankruptcy in 1880.
Caerau is a former mining village in the community of Maesteg, Bridgend County Borough, Wales, located approximately 2 miles north of the centre of Maesteg town in the Llynfi Valley. Caerau, surrounded by mountainous terrain and forestry, is one of the border points between Bridgend County Borough and Neath Port Talbot County Borough, bordered to the north by Croeserw and Cymmer, Neath Port Talbot. Caerau, borders Dyffryn and Spelter to the south in Nantyffyllon, Maesteg.
Cefn Cribwr is a village and community in Bridgend County Borough in south Wales. The village is located about 5 miles (8 km) from the centre of Bridgend town, and in-between Bridgend and Pyle.
Open-pit coal mining in the United Kingdom is in decline, and is planned to end in November 2023. Output has fallen every year since 2010. In 2010, the United Kingdom was forecast to produce about ten million tonnes of coal a year from open-pit mines. Most came from Scotland, with the largest operator there being the Scottish Coal subsidiary of Scottish Resources Group. Actual production in 2010 was over 13 million tonnes but this has declined to less than 8 million tonnes in 2014.
Ynysawdre is a small community in Bridgend County Borough, south Wales. It is located to the east of Aberkenfig in Wales, and comprises the two villages of Tondu and Brynmenyn. The name Ynysawdre is also usually used for a small section of Tondu. At the 2001 census, the population of the community was 3,698, reducing to 3,367 at the 2011 Census.
Garth is a village in Bridgend County Borough, Wales. Garth is situated to the east of the town of Maesteg, and lies at the northernmost end of the Llynfi Valley. During the 19th century Garth was an industrial coal-mining village which contained its own colliery, the Garth Merthyr Colliery.