Cornel Wain Colliery

Overview

One of the many small Merthyr levels worked for both coal and ironstone to feed the Cyfarthfa Iron Works, abandoned when the works itself gave up its last local ironstone workings in 1924.

History

Cornel Wain Colliery was one of many small levels worked for both coal and ironstone to feed the Cyfarthfa Iron Works. The Welsh mine ore worked in this district had an iron content of 30-35%, with impurities from sulphur, carbonic acid and water, and an early ratio of three tons of ore to one ton of iron produced; the ironstone veins themselves were numerous but thin, intermingled with the outcropping seams of the Lower Coal Measures. The mine was abandoned in March 1924. Cornel Wain's ironstone working sat within a long tradition at Cyfarthfa: an independent landscape-archaeology survey of the district describes the works' main phase of ironstone extraction running from about 1806, when Cyfarthfa's six blast furnaces made it briefly the largest ironworks in the world, through to the 1850s, when the works, by then in decline, began importing ore from elsewhere; surface quarrying and patch working of the Upper Yard Seam and Upper Black Pins ironstone at Cyfarthfa continued later than at most of the district's other works before being succeeded by driven levels.

Nearby mines

• Rhydycar Colliery — 0.2 km S
• Gellideg Colliery — 0.4 km NE
• Robbins Colliery — 0.4 km SW
• Ynysfach Colliery — 0.7 km S
• Cyfarthfa Ironworks — 0.8 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.

• The Welsh mine ore worked in this district had an iron content of 30-35%, with impurities from sulphur, carbonic acid and water, and an early smelting ratio of three tons of ore to one ton of iron produced; the ironstone veins were numerous but thin, intermingled with the outcropping seams of the Lower Coal Measures. ¹
• An independent landscape-archaeology survey describes Cyfarthfa's main phase of ironstone extraction as running from about 1806 to the 1850s, and specifically records that surface quarrying and patch working of the Upper Yard Seam and Upper Black Pins ironstone at Cyfarthfa continued later than at most of the district's other works before being succeeded by driven levels of the kind Cornel Wain represents. ²
• The mine was abandoned in March 1924, the same closure date recorded for several other small Cyfarthfa-feeder levels in the same NMRS survey, consistent with a district-wide end to this phase of Cyfarthfa's own ironstone and coal working. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Small Collieries around Merthyr Tydfil — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (secondary) Merthyr Tydfil - Historic Landscape Character Area — Heneb (Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust)

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