Fforchaman Colliery

Overview

Fforchaman at Cwmaman, five hundred yards west of Shepherd's Pit, was sunk in the 1850s to the Aberdare Four-Feet, the seam its own owners called the finest steam coal on the planet. Everyone called it Brown's Pit. Powell Duffryn held it from the 1860s to nationalisation and built a railway to reach it; the Coal Board closed it on 25 September 1965 after a review that the local union fought seam by seam.

History

Who sank it is not settled. Rhondda Cynon Taf Council has it sunk by Thomas Brown and Thomas Protheroe in 1856 and called Brown's Pit after Brown; the Mines Inspectorate's accident records have David Williams sinking it in 1851 and selling to Sir Thomas Phillips in 1858. Phillips and Protheroe were both Newport coal owners and close associates of Thomas Powell, who moved into the Cynon Valley at about the same time. The local name for it points to Brown either way. It was sold to the United Merthyr Collieries Company in 1864 and again, in 1866 or 1867, to Powell Duffryn, which held it until nationalisation in 1947. Between 1884 and 1886 the company built the Cwmaman and Abercwmboi Railways to connect it to the Taff Vale, so its coal could ship at Cardiff or Newport. The pit was bounded by Mardy to the west, Aberaman to the east, Bwllfa to the north and Ferndale to the south. Two accidents in its first thirty years each clear this archive's bar and have their own records (see Disasters, below): a shot fired against the colliery's own rules killed three men in January 1869, and a broken coupling sent a train of loaded drams into two fifteen-year-old boys in October 1885. The Northern Mine Research Society's list of fatalities here is otherwise a long run of single deaths from falls of roof and from being crushed by trams, a great many of them boys of twelve, thirteen and fourteen. The colliery grew through the Powell Duffryn years: 564 in 1894, 726 by 1896, 843 in 1910, 1,070 in 1913, 1,014 in 1923 and a peak of 1,269 in 1933. No. 2 shaft was deepened to the lower seams at 305 yards in 1908. Powell Duffryn's fiftieth-anniversary booklet of 1914 describes a winding engine by Frazer and Chalmers with 28-inch cylinders and a five-foot stroke turning a semi-spiral drum widening from eight to fourteen feet, and a Bleichert wire ropeway more than three-quarters of a mile long and rising 450 feet, carrying sixty tons of rubbish an hour to the tips in cars that tipped themselves. At nationalisation the pit went into the Coal Board's South Western Division, No. 4 (Aberdare) Area, worked in conjunction with Cwmaman and Fforchwen, and was down to the Five-Feet seam with 540 men underground and 91 on the surface. It produced 175,000 tons in 1957 with 767 men. By 1958 it was working the Gellideg alone. The closure review of 12 August 1965 went through the seams one by one. The Two-Feet-Nine had 735 acres left but was too thin; the Four-Feet was exhausted; the Six-Feet had 140 acres but was uneconomic; the Nine-Feet was difficult; the Bute had 185 acres and a million tons, eight years of work, but needed £30,000 to develop; the Red Vein was down to sixteen inches; the Yard had 430 acres and would cost £17,000 to open; the Seven-Feet needed boreholes to prove; the Five-Feet could not be mechanised; and the Gellideg had 900 acres but was subject to washouts. The local lodge argued the Bute, Yard and possibly the Seven-Feet could be worked. The Board replied that the pit had lost the equivalent of £8 per man employed in 1963-64 despite £500,000 invested, and that no more was coming. The last face, the V2, ran into thinning coal in July 1965 and the colliery closed on 25 September as uneconomic.

Geology

Fforchaman was sunk to the Aberdare Four-Feet, the steam coal seam its owners described as the finest on the planet, which ran between 66 and 72 inches thick here. Twelve seams lie between the Two-Feet-Nine and the Gellideg, totalling 46.5 feet of coal at an average of 3 feet 10 inches a seam and averaging 34 feet apart. The Bute, Yard, Six-Feet, Seven-Feet, Five-Feet, Nine-Feet, Red Vein and Gellideg are all named in the returns or the closure review.

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

Workings

Three shafts, two of them upcast, each originally 227 yards deep. The downcast was elliptical at 20 feet by 11 and sunk to 921 feet 9 inches; the upcast was 14 feet in diameter and 832 feet 2 inches deep, standing 60 yards from the other. Only the downcast was used for winding. No. 2 shaft was deepened to the lower seams at 305 yards in 1908. The winding engine, by Frazer and Chalmers, had 28-inch high-pressure cylinders with a five-foot stroke and a semi-spiral drum widening from eight to fourteen feet. A Bleichert aerial ropeway over three-quarters of a mile long, rising 450 feet, took rubbish to the tips at sixty tons an hour in self-tipping cars, needing attendance only at the loading end.

Closure

The National Coal Board closed the colliery on 25 September 1965 on the ground that it was uneconomic, over the objection of the local union, after the last face met thinning coal in July. The tips were afterwards removed and the ground landscaped.

What remains

The colliery is gone and its tips have been removed and landscaped. No account of the site as it stands today has been found in the sources read for this record.

Related mines

• Cwmaman Colliery — Neighbours five hundred yards apart in the Aman valley, worked together as one unit from 1918 and again under the Coal Board after 1947.

Nearby mines

• Cwmaman Colliery — 0.7 km W
• Ferndale Collieries — 0.8 km S
• Aberaman Colliery — 2.3 km NE
• Tylorstown Colliery — 2.5 km S
• Blaengwawr Colliery — 2.7 km N

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

Disasters & major incidents

• Fforchaman Colliery explosion
  5 January 1869 · Explosion · 3 fatalities
  A collier at Fforchaman bored a hole and charged it with powder on the first morning back after an idle day, in a pit where blasting was prohibited under any circumstances. He had been refused permission to use powder a few days before and was cautioned not to fire the shot. He fired it, and the firedamp explosion killed him and two others and burned eleven more.
• Fforchaman Colliery runaway drams
  20 October 1885 · Haulage / Transport · 2 fatalities
  Two boys of fifteen were walking out of Fforchaman behind a train of loaded wagons on the night of Tuesday 20 October 1885 when one of the coupling chains gave way. The train ran wild and struck them, killing both on the spot.

Recorded claims

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

• Rhondda Cynon Taf Council gives the sinking as Thomas Brown and Thomas Protheroe in 1856, the pit taking its local name from Brown. H.M. Inspectorate accident records give David Williams sinking it in 1851 and selling to Sir Thomas Phillips in 1858. Both Phillips and Protheroe were Newport coal owners associated with Thomas Powell. (disputed) ¹
• The Northern Mine Research Society gives the sale to Powell Duffryn as 1867 and Welsh Coal Mines as by 1868, while Powell Duffryn's own 1914 booklet says the colliery was purchased in 1866. (disputed) ^2,1
• Three shafts, two of them upcast, each originally 227 yards deep. The downcast was sunk to 921 feet 9 inches and was elliptical, 20 feet by 11; the upcast reached 832 feet 2 inches and was 14 feet across. They stood 60 yards apart and only the downcast wound coal. ^2,1
• The National Coal Board closed Fforchaman on 25 September 1965 as uneconomic, after a closure review on 12 August that the local union opposed seam by seam, and after the last face met thinning coal in July. ^2,1

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Fforchaman Colliery — Northern Mine Research Society, via the Internet Archive
2. (secondary) Fforchaman Colliery, Cwmaman — Welsh Coal Mines
3. (observational) North side of the Shepherds Arms, Cwmaman, Geograph 3905100 — Geograph Britain and Ireland
4. (secondary) Fforchaman Colliery — Durham Mining Museum

Record created: 11 September 2026 · Last researched: 11 September 2026