Cwmgorse Colliery

Overview

An anthracite slant at Gwaun-cae-Gurwen that began with a dozen men underground and ended as part of the largest anthracite group in the coalfield. It outlasted every other pit in the village, closing in 1964 or 1965.

History

Cwmgorse was a slant on the Amman valley side of Gwaun-cae-Gurwen, and it started very small: the Lists of Mines give nineteen employed in 1894 and sixteen in 1896, twelve of them underground. It was returned under the Cwmgorse Colliery Company Limited, and grew to fifty-five by 1900.

The railway that eventually served it opened in August 1901; before that the coal went out by horse and cart, which is a fair measure of the scale it worked at for its first twenty years. By 1923 it employed 351 people, 286 of them below ground.

It passed to North Amman Collieries and then to Amalgamated Anthracite Collieries, and at nationalisation in 1947 to the National Coal Board, producing 72,000 tons of anthracite that year. By 1945 the Gwaun-cae-Gurwen group — the East pit, the Steer pit, the Maerdy pit and the Cwmgorse slant — employed 2,035 people between them.

The group went one by one. The National Coal Board closed the Maerdy pit in 1948, the Steer pit in 1959 and the East pit in 1962 or 1963. Cwmgorse, the slant that had begun with a dozen men and a horse and cart, was the last of them and closed in 1964 or 1965.

Geology

The colliery worked anthracite at Gwaun-cae-Gurwen in the Amman valley, at the north-western edge of the South Wales coalfield. Neither source names the seams, which is a real gap: the district's Red Vein and the Amman valley anthracite measures are what a fuller account would specify.

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

Workings

A slant driven into the hillside rather than a shaft, worked alongside the shafts of the Gwaun-cae-Gurwen group. It was served by horse and cart until the railway reached it in August 1901.

Closure

Closed in 1964 or 1965, the last working of the Gwaun-cae-Gurwen group after the Maerdy pit went in 1948, the Steer pit in 1959 and the East pit in 1962 or 1963.

Related mines

• Gwaun Cae Gurwen Colliery — Worked by Amalgamated Anthracite and then the NCB alongside the Gwaun-cae-Gurwen pits; Welsh Coal Mines counts Cwmgorse slant in their 1945 workforce and NMRS places both in the NCB's No. 4 Group in 1961.

Disasters & major incidents

• Cwmgors Colliery explosion, 1942
  25 January 1942 · Explosion · 2 fatalities

  Early on Sunday 25 January 1942 a small explosion of firedamp in a heading at Cwmgors Colliery, Gwaun-cae-Gurwen, killed the collier D. J. Edwards and the night fireman Daniel Evans, who was visiting the place. Edwards's partner, Thomas Williams, walked out with shock.

  Edwards was working in a heading with Thomas Williams of Gorsstreet, Cwmgorse, and the night fireman, Daniel Evans, had come to visit them when the gas fired. Williams escaped the worst of the blast and was able to walk out of the mine.

Recorded claims

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

• The colliery was returned under the Cwmgorse Colliery Company Limited, then North Amman Collieries Ltd and Amalgamated Anthracite Collieries Ltd, and passed to the National Coal Board in 1947, producing 72,000 tons of anthracite that year. The Lists of Mines give nineteen employed in 1894, sixteen in 1896, fifty-five in 1900 and 351 in 1923. ¹
• In 1945 there were 2,035 men employed at the East pit, the Steer pit, the Maerdy pit and the Cwmgorse slant together. ²
• The Maerdy pit was closed by the National Coal Board in 1948, the Steer pit in 1959, the East pit in 1962 or 1963 and Cwmgorse in 1964 or 1965. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Cwmgorse Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
2. (secondary) Gwaun Cae Gurwen Colliery — Welsh Coal Mines

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