Cwm Cynon Colliery

Overview

The most southerly of Nixon's Navigation collieries, sunk at Penrhiwceiber from 1889 to shafts over five hundred yards deep. It employed nearly two thousand men for thirty years and closed in 1949, two years after nationalisation. Bernd and Hilla Becher photographed its winding tower.

History

Sinking at Cwm Cynon's No. 1 and No. 2 shafts began in 1889, on the Cynon valley floor near Mountain Ash, and the shafts went down 508 yards to the steam coal. The Inspector of Mines list for 1896 catches the work in progress: thirty-six sinkers and thirty surface workers, the Lists of Mines noting the colliery as sinking to steam coal.

What followed was one of the fastest expansions in this archive. From sixty-six people in 1896 the workforce went to 1,058 in 1900, 1,860 in 1905 and 1,843 in 1910. It was the most southerly of the Nixon's Navigation Coal Company's collieries, and it stayed close to two thousand for a quarter of a century — 1,937 in 1923, working the Two Feet Nine, Six Feet and Nine Feet seams, and 1,825 as late as 1933, though by then a third of them were at the surface.

Llewellyn (Nixon) Limited reopened it in 1929 and Powell Duffryn took it over in 1935. Then it fell away: 686 employed in 1940, 644 in 1945, 555 in 1947 when it produced 120,000 tons for the National Coal Board. It closed in 1949, two years after nationalisation.

Geology

The colliery worked the steam coal seams of the Cynon valley — the Two Feet Nine, Six Feet and Nine Feet — reached by shafts sunk 508 yards from the valley floor. It began on household coal in 1894 and was on steam coal from 1896, which is the change the sinking to 508 yards was for.

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

Workings

Two shafts, No. 1 and No. 2, sunk from 1889 to a depth of 508 yards.

Closure

Closed in 1949, two years after nationalisation.

Related mines

• Nixon's Navigation Colliery — Both were pits of John Nixon's company in the Cynon valley, run from the Navigation Offices at Mountain Ash; Cwm Cynon was the most southerly of the group.

Disasters & major incidents

• Cwm Cynon Colliery roof fall, 1908
  10 February 1908 · Collapse / Roof Fall · 2 fatalities

  Two men at Cwm Cynon Colliery, Penrhiwceibr, were killed on 10 February 1908 when a large stone they were trying to bar down from the roof of a road fell on them.

  On 10 February 1908 Benjamin Evans, 28, and Dennis Hallahan were working on a road in the Four Feet seam at Cwm Cynon Colliery, Penrhiwceibr, trying to bar down a stone in the roof about 9 feet by 4½ feet and 20 inches thick. Nobody saw how they came to be where they were found; it was thought they had failed to bring it down and were passing under it to work at the other end when it fell. Evans was killed outright, and Hallahan was so badly hurt that he died as he was being freed.

What's uncertain

Points where sources disagree or the record could not be settled; both accounts are kept. All open questions in the archive.

• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Cynon Level' (catalogue SW146, Wernddu (No 2 Rhondda)., dated 1952); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain) ³

Recorded claims

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

• Sinking at the Cwm Cynon No. 1 and No. 2 shafts, 508 yards deep, began in 1889; the Inspector of Mines list for 1896 records thirty-six sinkers and thirty surface workers employed here, and the colliery was the most southerly of Nixon's Coal Company's collieries. ^1,2
• The Lists of Mines give 495 employed in 1894, sixty-six in 1896 while sinking to steam coal, 1,058 in 1900, 1,860 in 1905, 1,843 in 1910, 1,541 in 1915, 1,937 in 1923, 1,825 in 1933, 686 in 1940 and 555 in 1947. Welsh Coal Mines gives 1,823 in 1908, 1,883 in 1913, 1,950 in 1923 and 644 in 1945. ^1,2
• The colliery returned household coal in 1894 and steam coal from 1896 onward, and in 1923 was producing from the Two Feet Nine, Six Feet and Nine Feet seams; in 1947 it produced 120,000 tons of manufacturing and steam coal. ^1,2
• The colliery was reopened by Llewellyn (Nixon) Ltd in 1929 and taken over by the Powell Duffryn Company in 1935; it passed to the National Coal Board in 1947 and closed in 1949, two years after nationalisation. ^1,2
• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Cynon Level' (catalogue SW146, Wernddu (No 2 Rhondda)., dated 1952); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain) ³

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Cwmcynon Colliery — Welsh Coal Mines
2. (primary) Cwm Cynon Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans: CYNON LEVEL — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority

Record created: 10 September 2026 · Last researched: 10 September 2026