Pentreclwydau Colliery

Glyn-neath, Vale of Neath (848051)

This drift mine was opened by the National Coal Board to exploit the western take of Aberpergwm Colliery. On its completion, it was intended to close both the Rock and Aberpergwm collieries. It was to work 1,500 acres of coal in seven seams between Aberpergwm and Ynysarwed mines that totalled 50 million tonnes of coal. Two drifts from Aberpergwm had previously tried to work this area in 1940 but ventilation and haulage problems forced them to pull out. The NCB had extreme difficulty in choosing a site for the new drifts due to the absence of a suitable rock bed caused by the Neath Trough.

In 1947 the ground was being developed with the manpower of thirteen, the manager being E.J.H. Nicholas. The No.2 Drift started in February 1955 and the No.1 Drift in March 1955.

The plan was for two drifts, 14 feet high, and 40 yards apart from the centres, to be driven. The No.1 was to be the intake ventilation drift and was driven down at one in three for 780 yards. The No.2 was to be the return drift and rose by 1- 150 for the first 65 yards and then dipped 1- 9.5 for 65 yards before dipping as per No.1. The drifts were worked by compressed air driven Eimco 21B shovels, that due to the gradient had to be chained to a haulage to control their forward movement. Ventilation was by a 19-inch diameter centra-rotating type fan feeding 24-inch diameter ducting. Haulage was by 150 h.p. haulages.

Weekly advance in March 1955 for the No.1 drift was 16.25 yards per week and for the No.2 it was 18.25 yards. It was to work seven seams with an output planned for 2,000 tons of coal a day. The coal would then be taken, by mini railway on the surface, 2,200 yards to the Aberpergwm washery. It was placed in the National Coal Board’s, South Western Division’s, No.9 (Neath) Area in 1954 when there were seven men on the surface of the mine and six men underground still developing the mine.

By 1957 the two main drifts were into the Nine-Feet seam with production commencing in 1958. A ‘continuous miner’ that produced 4 tons of coal a minute was purchased for £150,000 and was the only one of its type in the UK. It was planned to produce 2,000 tons a day and employ 1,000 men a dream that was never realised. In 1960 this colliery was in production employing 352 men and producing 45,000 tons of coal.

In 1961 manpower had increased to 513 men and coal production to 85,490 tons of coal. It was then in the No.4 (Aberdare) Area’s, No.2 Group along with Tower, Rhigos No.1, Rhigos No.7, Aberpergwm, Rock and Cwmgwrach collieries. The manpower for this Group was 3,126 men, while total coal production for that year was 726,000 tons. The Group Manager was D.M. James, and the Area Manager was T. Wright.

Pentreclwydau Colliery mainly worked the Bute (also called the Brass or Peacock) seam at a thickness of around one metre. In the period April to October 1966 the output per manshift at this colliery had slumped to 15.6 hundredweights and it was losing £0.75 on every ton of coal it produced to the sum of £163,634. The NCB/NUM met on the 23rd of May 1966 to discuss this colliery with the NCB stating that heavy losses, low productivity and high absenteeism amongst the men had made closure inevitable. However, they then agreed with the NUM to give the colliery until September to improve. In a NUM/NCB meeting dated 19th of September 1966, the NCB expressed their disappointment at the results from the Peacock seam and wanted to transfer the men to Blaengwrach however they again agreed to give the colliery more time to improve. The NCB then initially intended to close it on the 17th of March 1967 but again deferred closure when the NUM asked for time to improve production figures.

The colliery was closed by the NCB on the 27th of May 1967, but re-opened c1990 by Ryans Mining and later worked by Northern Strip Mining (South Wales) Limited (1995) which went into liquidation in April 1997 throwing 100 miners out of work. Pentreclwydau Mining Company then bought it and helped a management buy-out in October 1997. The new owners consisted of 9 management and 46 workers.

It closed again in July 1998 although the license for the mine had another 35 years to run and estimated reserves of coal were 70 million tonnes. The then company running the mine, Pentreclwydau Mining Company called their output Pentreclwydau or “Big P” anthracite and projected an output of 5,500 tonnes per week.

In July 1999 it was reopened by the Horizon Mining Limited who changed into Unity Mining Limited in May 2006.

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