Abercrave Colliery

Overview

An anthracite drift mine under Mynydd y Drum on the east side of the upper Swansea Valley at Abercraf, opened by the Abercrave Colliery Company in 1872 in a seam eighteen feet thick in places, and the last of the valley's four Drum collieries when the National Coal Board closed it in March 1967. It employed between 150 and 400 for most of its life and absorbed the neighbouring International Colliery after nationalisation.

History

Coal had been worked at Abercraf long before the colliery: the British Iron Company leased minerals on Cribarth in 1825 to feed an anthracite-smelting venture that failed within a year, and Daniel Harpur's family drove the Lefel Mawr level east of the village early in the century, carrying coal over the Pont y Yard to the canal. The Abercrave Colliery Company opened its drift in 1872, working two seams under Mynydd y Drum, the Eighteen Foot, which really was eighteen feet thick in places, and the Lower Measures seam of up to four feet. The Lists of Mines return it as anthracite from 1894, with 151 employed that year, 172 in 1897, 161 in 1900, 319 in 1910 and 213 in 1915, working the Four Feet and Nine Feet; in 1923 275 people raised coal from the Big Vein, Four Feet and Peacock. The company passed into Welsh Anthracite Collieries Ltd, which held it until nationalisation, and by 1940 the pit and its neighbour International, bought by the Abercrave company in 1913 after a French owner's receivership, were run together by Abercrave and International Collieries Ltd from an office in Ironmonger Lane, London, with J. Henry Davies as manager of both and 456 underground between them. The National Coal Board took 390 people and an output of 100,000 tons in 1947. The village grew with the pit: the Abercrave and District Miners' Welfare Hall, opened in 1927 and paid for from the men's weekly contributions, is still the community centre, and in 1950 John Rees Williams, a 65-year-old repairer, was presented there with the Daily Herald's Order of Industrial Heroism for digging out a collapsed workmate. International was absorbed into Abercrave soon after nationalisation and closed on 31 May 1967. The Durham Mining Museum gives Abercrave's own closure as March 1967, when Welsh Coal Mines counts 450 jobs lost, the last of the four collieries that had worked the Drum. Twenty-five deaths are named between 1870 and 1927, falls of roof and side in the Four Feet and Big Vein, boys run over by trams, and two single deaths from firedamp: Thomas Rees in 1895, burned with three others when naked lights fired gas in the Big Vein on the night shift, and Thomas Thomas in 1896. A boy of thirteen, D. Handry, died in an explosion of gas in 1874.

Geology

Anthracite of the north-west crop of the South Wales Coalfield under Mynydd y Drum: the Eighteen Foot (Big Vein or Nine Feet), Four Feet, Peacock, Lower Measures and, in the last years, the Eighteen Feet seam drift that ran out of reserves.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (historical documentary reference)

Workings

Drift mines into the hillside; by the 1960s two drifts, one in the Eighteen Feet seam. Steam, electric and compressed-air power by 1940. Safety lamps were in use in the Nine Feet by 1909; the 1895 explosion happened in a naked-light district.

Closure

Closed by the National Coal Board in March 1967. Welsh Coal Mines puts the loss at 450 jobs; the International drift, run as part of Abercrave since nationalisation, closed on 31 May 1967.

What remains

Not established from the sources read. The village retains the Miners' Welfare Hall of 1927; the Nant Helen opencast on the Drum, the last coal working in the area, closed in November 2023 and its site is being redeveloped as a rail test centre.

Not established from the sources read; no photograph of the colliery was found under licence.

Nearby mines

• Onllwyn Colliery — 2.0 km SE, Neath Port Talbot
• Seven Sisters Colliery — 3.3 km SW, Neath Port Talbot
• Yniscedwyn Colliery — 4.1 km SW
• Aberpergwm Colliery — 4.8 km E, Neath Port Talbot
• Penwyllt Quarry — 5.1 km N

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• The Abercrave Colliery Co. opened the anthracite drift in 1872, working the Eighteen Foot seam, eighteen feet thick in places, and the Lower Measures seam of up to four feet under Mynydd y Drum. ¹
• 151 in 1894, 172 in 1897, 161 in 1900, 319 in 1910, 213 in 1915, 275 in 1923, 303 in 1933, 239 in 1940 and 390 in 1947, with 100,000 tons raised that year. ^1,2
• Abercrave Colliery Co., Welsh Anthracite Collieries Ltd, Abercrave and International Collieries Ltd (1940, 456 underground at the two pits) and the National Coal Board from 1947. ^2,3
• Closed by the NCB in March 1967 with the loss of 450 jobs; the International drift, absorbed after nationalisation, closed on 31 May 1967. ^1,2
• Twenty-five named deaths 1870–1927, all single; Thomas Rees was burned fatally and three others slightly by a firedamp explosion in the naked-light Big Vein workings on 16 July 1895. ²
• The Abercrave and District Miners' Welfare Hall opened in 1927 from the men's weekly contributions; John Rees Williams, 65, a repairer, received the Daily Herald Order of Industrial Heroism there in December 1950. ^4,5

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Abercrave – Abercraf Colliery — Welsh Coal Mines — Welsh Coal Mines
2. (secondary) Abercrave Colliery — Durham Mining Museum — Durham Mining Museum
3. (secondary) Abercrave and International Collieries Ltd. — Durham Mining Museum — Durham Mining Museum
4. (secondary) Abercrave Ward — Ystradgynlais Town Council — Ystradgynlais Town Council
5. (secondary) Medals — Welsh Coal Mines — Welsh Coal Mines
6. (secondary) Abercraf — Wikipedia — Wikipedia

Record created: 12 September 2026 · Last researched: 12 September 2026