Buxtons Colliery

Overview

A Dowlais Iron Company pit supplying iron ore and coal from 1871, where a 17-year-old collier died in a shaft accident two years later. It went on to work several of the wider Dowlais Collieries complex's shared seams into the 1910s.

History

Buxtons Colliery was worked to supply the Dowlais Iron Works with iron ore and coal between 1871 and 1876. On 8 December 1873, James Evans, a 17-year-old collier working at Buxton's, died in a shaft incident. The pit was one of the mines making up the wider "Dowlais Collieries" — the umbrella name for everything worked for the Dowlais Iron Works — worked for both coal and ironstone across the group and abandoned in May 1924. Within that shared working, Buxtons was among the pits that worked the Lower-Four-Feet seam (abandoned August 1908, its top section in July 1917) and the Little or Seven-Feet seam (abandoned July 1917).

Geology

Worked iron ore and, as part of the shared Dowlais Collieries working, the Lower-Four-Feet (to 1908/17) and Little/Seven-Feet (to 1917) seams.

Workings

Worked iron ore and coal from 1871; later part of the shared Dowlais Collieries working of the Lower-Four-Feet and Little/Seven-Feet seams.

Closure

Recorded as worked 1871–76 in its own right, then continuing as part of the wider Dowlais Collieries group, abandoned with the rest of that group in May 1924.

What remains

Unknown.

Nearby mines

• Pant-y-Waun Colliery — 0.2 km NW
• Rhas Las Colliery — 0.4 km E
• Fochriw Colliery — 0.5 km NW, Caerphilly
• Wagstaff Colliery — 0.5 km NE
• Blaen Rhas Colliery — 0.6 km NW

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.

• Worked to supply the Dowlais Iron Works with iron ore and coal between 1871 and 1876. ¹
• James Evans, 17, a collier, died in a shaft incident on 8 December 1873. ²
• One of the pits making up the wider Dowlais Collieries complex, worked for coal and ironstone across the group and abandoned in May 1924; within that shared working it worked the Lower-Four-Feet seam (to 1908/17) and the Little/Seven-Feet seam (to 1917). ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Small collieries of the Dowlais Cwmbargoed & Penydarren areas — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (secondary) Dowlais Collieries — Northern Mine Research Society

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