Nebo Colliery

Ystrad, Rhondda Fawr Valley

This was a level that worked the Pentre seam at a thickness of around 34 inches for house coal under the ownership of the Cory Brothers. In 1935 it is shown to be working as part of the Gelli Collieries and producing 179 tons of housecoal per day from the Lower Pentre seam which was 77 yards below the surface and had a section of coal 14 inches, dirt 1.5 inches, coal 1 inch. In 1938 it was managed by E.R. Williams and employed 240 men.

Richard and John Cory were Cardiff Shipowners who decided to move into coal production. In October 1869 they purchased the Pentre Colliery, expanded it, and from the profits that they made purchased the Gelli and Tynybedw Pits in 1884. From their base in the Rhondda Fawr Valley, they went on to own pits in the Ogmore and Resolven areas to eventually become the largest of the independent coal owners of the South Wales Coalfield. Cory Brothers and Company was formed in 1888, with it becoming a public liability company in 1891. In 1913 this company owned twelve mines and employed 5,446 men. In 1935 it owned ten mines and employed 5,722 men, they produced 1,600,000 tons of coal.

The directors were; Sir Clifford J. Cory and J. Johns and at that time the company owned eight collieries and produced 1,600,000 tons of coal. The Cory Brothers were also one of the largest coal shippers in South Wales, and to remind us of the magnitude of this industry, and of the importance of South Wales coal pre-1914, below is a list of the Cory Brothers’ foreign depots:

Aden, Alexandria, Algiers, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bahia, Bahia Blanca, Barbados, Bari, Bombay, Bordeaux, Buenos Ayres, Cadiz, Calcutta, Cape Town, Cette, Civita Vecchia, Colombo, Constantinople, Corcubion, Coruna, Curacao, Fayal, Fuime, Galatz, Gale, Genoa, Gibraltar, Havre, La Plata, La Rochelle, Las Palmas, Madeira, Malta, Marseilles, Mauritius, Messina, Mombassa, Monte Video, Nantes, Naples, Odessa, Oran, Para, Pernambuco, Piraes, Port Said, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande, Rosario, Rotterdam, Saigon, St. Lucia, St. Michael’s Azores, St. Thomas, St. Vincent, San Francisco, Santos, Savona, Seychelles, Singapore, Smyrna, Spezzia, Suez, Sulina, Syra, Tenerife, Trieste, Tunis, Venice, Vigo, Zanzibar, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans.

In 1943 the manager was A.D. Thomas and in 1945 it was D.S. Evans. In both years it employed 153 men working underground in the Pentre and Lower Pentre seams and 36 men working on the surface of the mine. On Nationalisation in 1947, Nebo Level was placed in the National Coal Board’s, South Western Division’s, No.3 Area, and at that time employed 26 men on the surface and 150 men underground. The manager was A.D. Thomas. In 1948 it employed 150 men working underground and 30 men at the surface of the mine and produced 20,000 tons of coal and in 1949 it employed 170 men and produced 46,000 tons of coal and in 1950 it employed 166 men.

It was closed in July 1953 by that time it had reached a distance of 2,500 yards to the north of the mouth of the level.

Information supplied by Ray Lawrence and used here with his permission.