Lady Windsor Colliery

Overview

David Davies's pit at Ynysybwl, sunk in twenty months for £95,875 and named after a baroness, raising steam coal good enough for the Admiralty and Cunard. It built the village around it, and closed in 1988 after a hundred and four years.

History

Prospecting at Graigddu in the early 1880s proved the coal, and the sinking of Lady Windsor began in 1884 and finished twenty months later in 1885, at a cost of £95,875. It was paid for by Davies, Scott and Company, formed by David Davies and Company specifically to carry the cost; the Ocean Coal Company took it over when that was formed in 1887. The colliery was named after Harriet Windsor-Clive, thirteenth Baroness Windsor, co-heiress of the Plymouth Estates on whose ground it stood. The two shafts were each 689 yards deep and the first coal came up in 1886. Many of the early workers came from Davies's own village of Llandinam in Montgomeryshire. A village sprang up with the pit: three hundred terraced houses built by the owners at Ynysybwl, most on the western side of the valley. At its height the colliery employed about fifteen hundred people directly, and most of the six or seven thousand in the village depended on it one way or another. The steam coal was good enough that the Admiralty and the Cunard Line bought it, and it was partly to secure more of the same that David Davies bought the rival Deep Navigation Colliery in 1893; from 1914 Deep Navigation supplied Lady Windsor with electricity for a time. In 1931 Lady Windsor was among the first collieries in Wales to have pithead baths and a first aid and medical treatment room, and villagers were allowed to use the baths for threepence to sixpence. Nationalisation came on 1 January 1947. The Lady Windsor lodge took a leading part in the strike of 1984 and 1985 and got the pit back to ninety-eight per cent of expected output within a month of the return to work. Lady Windsor merged with Abercynon Colliery in 1973, and British Coal closed the two of them together in February 1988. The pit was modernised twice under the Board. A four million pound reorganisation in 1964 put in a new pit bottom, trunk conveyors and diesel locomotive haulage, and in March 1975, for a further £450,000, Lady Windsor was linked underground with Abercynon on the other side of the mountain to work as one unit — 1,150 men then producing 318,000 tons a year from the Six Feet, Lower Nine Feet and Seven Feet, all of it raised at the Lady Windsor end from 687 yards.

Geology

The South Wales Coalfield steam-coal measures, worked here through the Four Feet, Six Feet and Nine Feet seams — the high-rank coals that made Welsh steam coal what the Admiralty wanted.

Workings

Two shafts, Nos. 1 and 2, each 689 yards deep. The colliery was worked with Abercynon as a single unit in its last years and closed with it.

Closure

Lady Windsor merged with Abercynon in 1973 and British Coal closed the combined colliery in February 1988, a hundred and four years after the sinking began.

What remains

The colliery site has been cleared. The Lady Windsor Colliery Cycleway, a branch off the Taff Trail, runs up the valley on the old railway line to Ynysybwl.

Nothing of the colliery; the branch railway's course survives as a cycleway and the owners' terraces still stand in the village.

Redevelopment

A cycleway on the colliery railway.

Related mines

• Abercynon Colliery — The two were worked as a single colliery in their last years and British Coal closed them together in February 1988.
• Deep Navigation Colliery — David Davies bought Deep Navigation from its Harris owners in 1893, partly on the strength of the maritime market Lady Windsor's steam coal had opened, and from 1914 Deep Navigation supplied Lady Windsor with electricity for a period. Both were Ocean Coal Company pits.

Nearby mines

• Penrikyber Colliery — 0.9 km NW
• Abercynon Colliery — 1.9 km E
• Llancaiach Colliery — 1.9 km E, Caerphilly
• Albion Colliery — 2.8 km SE
• Deep Navigation Colliery — 3.1 km E, Merthyr Tydfil

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 sinking was started in 1884 and completed in 1885 after twenty months, at a cost of £95,875, by Davies, Scott and Company — a company formed by David Davies and Company specifically to cover the cost of opening this colliery. The Ocean Coal Company took over when it was formed in 1887. ¹
• The colliery was named after Harriet Windsor-Clive, thirteenth Baroness Windsor, who had been co-heiress of the Plymouth Estates on whose land it was sunk. ¹
• The steam coal raised here was of a grade ideal for maritime use and was bought by the Admiralty and the Cunard Line among others. It was partly to secure more of it that David Davies bought the rival Deep Navigation Colliery in 1893. ¹
• In 1931 Lady Windsor was among the first collieries in Wales to provide pithead baths and a first aid and medical treatment room, and the residents of Ynysybwl were allowed to use the baths for a small fee of threepence to sixpence. ¹
• The Durham Mining Museum's transcription of the Lists of Mines shows steam coal throughout under the Ocean Coal Company and then Ocean and United National Collieries, employment of 1,099 in 1894 and 1,330 by 1940, and the Four, Six and Nine Feet seams. At nationalisation in 1947 the pit had 1,012 employed and produced 300,000 tons. ²
• The Lady Windsor lodge took a leading role in the miners' strike of 1985 and 1986, and the colliery made an impressive recovery afterwards, reaching ninety-eight per cent of expected output within a month. ¹
• The Royal Commission's record has Lady Windsor merging with Abercynon Colliery in 1973 and the combined Lady Windsor and Abercynon colliery closed by British Coal in February 1988. The colliery was first shown on Ordnance Survey county series mapping in the second edition of 1900. ³
• The pithead baths opened on 26 January 1931. ⁴
• A four million pound reorganisation in 1964 put in a new pit bottom area, trunk conveyors and a diesel locomotive haulage system. ⁴
• In March 1975 Lady Windsor was linked underground with Abercynon Colliery, on the other side of the mountain, to form a single producing unit, at a cost of £450,000. At that point 1,150 men were producing 318,000 tons a year from the Six Feet, Lower Nine Feet and Seven Feet seams, and the coal was raised at the Lady Windsor end from a depth of 687 yards. ⁴
• Welsh Coal Mines gives 1,141 employed in the Inspector of Mines list for 1896, 886 in 1918, 1,057 in a report of 1923 working the Four, Six and Nine Feet seams, and 1,153 by 1945. ⁴

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Lady Windsor Colliery — Wikipedia
2. (secondary) Lady Windsor Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) Lady Windsor Colliery (NPRN 33491) — Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales
4. (secondary) Lady Windsor, Ynysybwl — Welsh Coal Mines

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