Bodyst Uchaf Colliery

Overview

A Bettws farmland slant driven in 1890 that gave its name to a much later NCB-licensed mine on the same land, worked until 1995.

History

In 1890 the mining engineer Henry Herbert drove a slant under Bodyst farmland on Betws Mountain into the Red Vein seam. A fuller, independently written account of the same episode (which names the site Bodyst Isaf rather than Bodyst Uchaf — the two names sit on the same farmland and the sources have not been reconciled) records that Herbert sold his undertaking soon afterwards to a syndicate of Lancashire coal owners, who formed the Ammanford Colliery Company Ltd with £40,000 of share capital. The new company closed the original slant and opened a fresh working nearby on Glyn-cywrch Farm land, still in the Red Vein, which became Ammanford No.1 Colliery — known to generations of miners as "Top Works". Bodyst Uchaf itself reappears in the documentary record nearly a century later as a small mine licensed by the National Coal Board and owned, by 1980s, by the Bodyst Uchaf Colliery Company of Ammanford. This later mine worked the No.1 Rhondda seam and closed in March 1995.

Nearby mines

• Betws Colliery — 0.4 km N
• Ammanford Colliery — 0.9 km W
• Wernos Colliery — 1.2 km W
• Pantyffynnon Colliery — 1.7 km SW
• Blaenau Saron Colliery — 3.3 km W

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.

• A slant was driven under Bodyst Uchaf farmland in 1890 by Henry Herbert into the Red Vein seam, before being sold to the Ammanford Colliery Company Limited, who closed it and opened Ammanford No.1 Slant. ¹
• An independent local account of the same 1890 episode names the site Bodyst Isaf rather than Bodyst Uchaf, but otherwise matches in every particular: Henry Herbert sank the mine in 1890, sold it to a Lancashire syndicate trading as the Ammanford Colliery Company Ltd (£40,000 share capital), who closed it and opened a new slant on Glyn-cywrch Farm land, working the same Red Vein seam, known as Ammanford No.1 Colliery or "Top Works". (disputed) ^2,1
• A later, unrelated mine of the same name was worked under National Coal Board licence, owned by the Bodyst Uchaf Colliery Company of Ammanford in the 1980s, working the No.1 Rhondda seam until closure in March 1995. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Small Collieries of the Amman Valley — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (secondary) Ammanford Colliery and Betws Colliery — terrynorm.ic24.net (Ammanford local history)

Record created: 15 September 2026 · Last researched: 15 September 2026