Bettws Llantwit Colliery

Tondu, Bridgend

There was an old drift mine which was opened in 1828 by Nash Edwards-Vaughn. Bettws Llantwit is located at around SS892875 and was owned in 1858/60 by H. Cossham and Company and in 1869/70 by Thomas Hopkins.

On the 31st of March 1873, the Bettws Llantwit Company Limited was formed with a capital of £60,000 in £10 shares. The directors were; Sir Wilfred Bratt, a director of Chelsea Waterworks. William Boyle, collier owner; F.J. Hesseltine, director of the Dunraven Adare Coal and Iron Company; H. A. Revell, United Service Club; G.F. Carlyon-Simmons, director of the Gnoll Colliery Company. The prospectus continued to state that the workings were in the Middle Bettws seam which was 54 inches thick, and was reached by a level. The output would soon reach 120 tons per day, and when the shafts are sunk to the Nine-Feet seam (the Big Bettws), which would take a year, 500 tons a day would be produced.

On the 29th of November 1875, Henry Storry, aged 23, and a collier, died under a roof fall at this mine. In 1884 it was still owned by the Bettws Llantwit Coal Company with the manager being J. Williams.

The Birmingham Daily Post of Wednesday, 3rd of November 1886, reported that this mine had hit old workings and was flooded with two men seriously injured.

One drift worked between 1854 and 1893. Another drift at SS907871 worked between 1880 and 1896, another at SS900883 worked between 1907 and 1911 while another at SS890869 worked between 1933 and 1935.

East Bettws worked at SS902869 and closed in 1944. In 1901 it employed 18 men, in 1902 it employed 15 men and it employed 15 men underground working the Bettws Four-Feet seam and 3 men on the surface in 1908/9/11 when owned by the Bettws Llantwit Colliery Company of Cardiff. It was abandoned in 1911. The plans for the colliery were kept by Evans & Bevan until 1921. In 1933 this colliery employed two men ‘developing.’

This information has been provided by Ray Lawrence, from books he has written, which contain much more information, including many photographs, maps and plans. Please contact him at welshminingbooks@gmail.com for availability.