Cwmtillery Colliery - a brief history

In 1843, Thomas Brown, owner of Blaina Iron Works, established Tir Nicolas Colliery by sinking the first shaft to the Elled seam at 130 yards at Tir Nicolas farm. In 1852, John Russell, a previous partner of Thomas Brown at the Iron Works took over and extended and deepened the shafts, No. 3 (240 yards) and No. 2 (185 yards). When John Russell took over ownership of the new colliery, he described the scene at Tir Nicolas before the colliery buildings were erected: "A typical Welsh valley farm with massive gables and a stone-tiled roof, situated low in the valley for shelter. The front garden was surrounded by hedges of Holly and Beech and its stone-flagged pathways were lined with dwarf bunders of clipped box bushes. Near the house was a watermill. Inside the house sat two women working at spinning wheel, making wool for knitting or weaving. Large sides of bacon hung from the rafters and simple food, including milk, butter and cheese made from ewe's milk, and instead of wheaten bread, crisp fresh oatcakes was the diet."

Despite the death of thirteen men died in an underground explosion 27th May, 1857, a further shaft 261 yards deep was added in 1858. During 1864 the South Wales Colliery Company was formed to purchase the colliery. Two years later in 1866, there was an explosion killing three men, after an air door had been left open. Another explosion on 5th April, 1873 resulted in six more deaths.

The colliery's biggest disaster struck on 18th December 1876 when an explosion happened in the three-quarter seam at around 6am killing sixteen men and boys instantly. Two others died from their injuries two days later. Another 21 workers were injured, 11 of them seriously. Most of the deaths and injuries were the result of serious burns and it is thought that the final death toll reached 23 as others succumbed to their injuries in the following years.

Lancaster, Spier & Company, later to become, Lancaster’s Steam Coal Company, took over the lease in 1888. The Inspector of Mines 1896 list shows a workforce of 1615 men at South Wales Cwmtillery Colliery and Rose Heyworth, producing coal from the Old Coal, Big Vein, Elled and Three Quarter seams. By 1908 the workforce at these two pits had risen to 2,664 and ten years later, this had risen to 2,760.

By nationalisation just after the second world war, the workforce numbered just about 1200. In its first 100 years an estimated 32 million tons of coal was produced at this colliery. It was integrated with Rose Heyworth in 1959 after a new drift mine, Abertillery New Mine was driven 1,200 yards at a 1 in 5 gradient to raise the coal from the two pits.

Cwmtillery was one of the first collieries in South Wales to use the Meco-Moore Power Loader. It also had the longest man-riding system in South Wales, carrying men 3000 metres into the Garw Seam. The colliery closed in 1982.

For more on Cwmtillery Colliery, click on the links below:

Cwmtillery Colliery just after closure - 1983
Images of Cwmtillery Colliery 2004
Welsh Coal Mines site
Cwmtillery Online

This picture (kindly supplied by Graham Bennett) and the picture immediately below are very early photographs of the colliery probably taken in the early 1890s.

This picture again is probably from the 1890s. The old High Street on Cwmtillery's West Bank is clearly visible in the left centre of the picture. The larger building on the left of the street seems to be from old OS maps the original South Wales Inn, which was rebuilt. The inn was originally attached to the South Wales Colliery company hence its name.

This view, which appeared on a postcard made by E. Purnell of Somerset Street, Abertillery, is from a little later than those above, about 1905. Note that the stack seems bigger than the one on the right in the top photograph whilst the second pithead also appears taller. More buildings seem to have appeared.

This was the view around about the mid 1920s.

By the 1920s, the coal washeries slightly further down the valley had been established together with the By Product works (opposite) whose coke ovens will generate acrid products including tar, ammonium sulphate, and crude benzol.

Some of the washeries' buildings remained until the very late 1960s, when they were demolished as part of a huge reclamation scheme.
 

The pitheads and winding wheels are silhouetted against the the Arael Mountain in the background and the smoke drift from the houses on Gwern Berthi. This view from about the late 1960s also shows the old Cooperative store just to the left of the wheel on the left.