Broadmoor Colliery

Overview

A small anthracite pit at Begelly, working the Timber Vein from about 1820, where the 1842 Royal Commission found women at the windlass and an eight-year-old haulier with no shoes. A broken chain killed seven, including that boy, in 1844; the colliery was last listed in 1873 and briefly reworked in 1926-30.

History

Broadmoor Colliery was a small anthracite pit at Begelly in the Pembrokeshire coalfield, working the Timber Vein from about 1820 from a shaft about 204 feet deep; Welsh Coal Mines places its opening in the early nineteenth century. The Royal Commission on children's employment found it in 1842 with Lewis Wilson as proprietor and David Morgan as manager, owned by Messrs Wilsons and Smith and employing 56 men and 47 women and girls. Among those it recorded were Hannah Bowen, sixteen, who worked the windlass for three shillings a week and could draw up 400 loads a day, and Benjamin Thomas, eight, who had been underground for a year, ate meat only on Sundays and had no shoes. On 13 May 1844 the chain broke while men were being brought up the shaft and seven were killed, among them the same Benjamin Thomas (see Disasters, below). The Greenhill shaft is recorded as sunk in 1850-53. Spencer and Cope owned the colliery in 1858, Cope and Company in 1865 and the Broadmoor Anthracite Coal Company in 1870, and it does not appear in the lists after 1873. A company formed in 1910 to restart it came to nothing, but in 1926 W. C. Gunter and a Mr Brinn opened a new mine on the site, abandoned in 1927, and in 1929 John Butler and George Henry Cook started again as the Broadmoor Colliery Company, which failed in 1930.

Geology

Anthracite of the Pembrokeshire coalfield: the Timber Vein.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (well documented example)

Workings

A shaft about 204 feet deep to the Timber Vein, wound by windlass in 1842 and by a chain on which men rode in 1844; the Greenhill shaft, sunk 1850-53 to 194 yards (possibly feet); small mines at SN 095 062 in 1926-30.

Closure

The colliery does not appear in the lists after 1873. Small mines were opened on the site in 1926 (abandoned 1927) and 1929, the last abandoned in 1930 when its company failed.

Disasters & major incidents

• Broadmoor Colliery chain break, 1844
  13 May 1844 · Winding / Shaft Accident · 7 fatalities
  On 13 May 1844 eight men and boys were being drawn up the shaft of Broadmoor Colliery at Begelly, Pembrokeshire, when the tub caught on timber near the top and the chain broke. They fell to the bottom; seven died, among them a boy of eleven, and one survived.

Recorded claims

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

• The 1842 Royal Commission recorded Broad-Moor Colliery, Begelly, with Lewis Wilson as proprietor and David Morgan as manager; it employed 56 men and 47 females, among them Hannah Bowen, 16, windlass woman, and Benjamin Thomas, about eight, haulier of skips. ¹
• It was owned by Messrs Wilsons and Smith in 1842, Spencer and Cope in 1858, Cope and Company in 1865 and the Broadmoor Anthracite Coal Company in 1870, and did not feature in listings after 1873. ¹
• Coroners' records list deaths at Broadmoor, Begelly, in 1839 (a fall into the pit), 1844, 1846 (a sinker struck by stones after blasting) and 1853 (a boy who fell out of a tub). ²
• In 1926 W. C. Gunter and Mr Brinn started a new mine at SN 095 062, abandoned in 1927; in 1929 John Butler and George Henry Cook, as the Broadmoor Colliery Co., started again and abandoned it in 1930. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Thomas Chapel colliery — Welsh Coal Mines
2. (secondary) Extract of coroners' inquests in the coalfield of eastern Pembrokeshire — GENUKI
3. (primary) Broadmoor (Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan, via BGS catalogue item 21905127) — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority
4. (secondary) Mining fatalities, 1844 — Welsh Coal Mines

Record created: 19 September 2026 · Last researched: 19 September 2026