Llay Hall Colliery

Overview

A colliery at Cefn-y-bedd, north of Wrexham, sunk in 1877 by the Llay Hall Coal, Iron and Fireclay Company and worked with a fire-brick works across the River Alyn; it employed four to five hundred, closed after an explosion soon after nationalisation, and its engine house, washery, workshops and chimney are listed.

History

Llay Hall Colliery lay at Cefn-y-bedd, about three miles north-north-west of Wrexham. It was sunk in 1877 by the Llay Hall Coal, Iron and Fireclay Company and worked in association with a fire-brick works on the opposite side of the river; a drift raised fireclay in 1896. E. S. Clarke and then the Llay Hall Colliery Company, later limited, owned it. It employed 437 people in 1894, 533 in 1905 and around four to five hundred through the following decades, raising household, steam and gas coal from the Brassey, Crown, Main and Two Yard seams, and later the Prince and Quaker.

Some fifty deaths are recorded. On 3 December 1880 four men were killed descending the shaft when the cage caught the underground haulage rope and the men were thrown out; an explosion of gas killed two in May 1881, and a fall of top coal two more in April 1888.

The National Coal Board took it over in 1947, when it employed 427 and raised 90,000 tons, but the colliery closed in 1948, soon after a serious underground explosion. Its buildings survive in an industrial estate: the engine house that held the winding engine for No. 1 shaft and a fan engine, workshops from the 1870s, a chimney of the 1890s with a fifty-metre flue down the slope to the boilers, and a screens and washery building of about 1920, thought one of only two pre-war washeries left in Wales. All four are listed Grade II.

Geology

The Brassey, Crown, Main and Two Yard seams, and later the Prince and Quaker; fireclay was also worked.

Workings

Shafts including No. 1, with a fireclay drift in 1896.

Closure

Nationalised in 1947, the colliery closed in 1948 soon after a serious underground explosion.

What remains

The surviving colliery buildings are in use as an industrial estate.

A Grade II listed engine house, washery, workshops and chimney with its flue.

Recorded claims

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

• Llay Hall Colliery was sunk in 1877 by the Llay Hall Coal, Iron and Fireclay Company, with a fire-brick works across the River Alyn. ^1,2
• Llay Hall Colliery employed 533 people in 1905. ³
• Four men were killed at Llay Hall on 3 December 1880 when the descending cage caught the underground haulage rope. ³
• Llay Hall was nationalised in 1947 and closed soon afterwards, following a serious underground explosion. ^1,4,5
• Llay Hall's washery of about 1920 is thought to be one of only two pre-war colliery washeries surviving in Wales. ⁴

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Former Llay Hall Collery Engine House, Grade II (British Listed Buildings, Cadw 15829 series) — British Listed Buildings
2. (secondary) Former Llay Hall Colliery Workshops, Grade II (British Listed Buildings) — British Listed Buildings
3. (primary) Llay Hall Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
4. (secondary) Former Llay Hall Colliery Washery Building, Grade II (British Listed Buildings) — British Listed Buildings
5. (secondary) Former Llay Hall Colliery Chimney and Flue, Grade II (British Listed Buildings) — British Listed Buildings

Record created: 23 October 2026 · Last researched: 23 October 2026