Lluest Colliery

Overview

A house-coal colliery at Pontyrhyl in the Garw Valley, working the No. 3 Rhondda seam in a section as little as twenty-two inches thick. It employed 154 men in 1896. An explosion in August 1899 killed nineteen men and boys — one of them a man who had left another part of the mine to help — and production ceased three years later.

History

The colliery stood at Pontyrhyl in the Garw Valley and appears in a list of 1880 under the Lluest Coal Company Ltd. It worked the No. 3 Rhondda seam, which here ran between twenty-two and forty-two inches thick. By 1887 it was owned by the Abernant Colliery Company and managed by H. Harries, and the Inspector of Mines' list for 1896 records 154 men employed at what it classes as a house-coal colliery. On 18 August 1899 an explosion killed nineteen men and boys (see Disasters, below). Production ceased at the colliery in 1902. The site was reclaimed in the early 2000s; the Garw Valley Heritage Society holds both the site investigation report for the reclamation and the official reports on the 1899 explosion, including the Home Office report laid before the House of Commons in October 1899.

Geology

The colliery worked the No. 3 Rhondda seam, one of the house-coal seams of the Pennant succession in the upper Coal Measures, at the head of the Garw Valley. The seam's thinness here — as little as twenty-two inches in places — is the defining fact about working it: men cut coal lying down in a space barely deeper than their own shoulders.

Workings

The colliery worked the No. 3 Rhondda seam at a thickness of between twenty-two and forty-two inches — a low working even by the standards of the Welsh house-coal pits. It was classed as a house-coal colliery in the Inspector of Mines' returns, and like most of the house-coal collieries of the Garw and the neighbouring valleys it was worked with naked lights.

Closure

Production ceased at the colliery in 1902, three years after the explosion.

What remains

The colliery site was reclaimed, a site investigation report having been prepared for Bridgend County Borough Council in 2002. A memorial in the valley commemorates the miners who died at the Garw collieries.

No colliery structures; the site has been reclaimed.

Nearby mines

• Wyndham Western Colliery — 2.2 km E
• Park Slip Colliery — 5.6 km SW
• Cambrian Colliery — 7.3 km NE, Rhondda Cynon Taf
• Pentre Colliery — 9.0 km NE, Rhondda Cynon Taf
• Naval Colliery — 9.7 km E, Rhondda Cynon Taf

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

Disasters & major incidents

• Lluest Colliery Explosion, 1899
  18 August 1899 · Explosion · 19 fatalities
  An explosion at Lluest Colliery at Pontyrhyl in the Garw Valley on 18 August 1899 killed nineteen men and boys. One of the dead had come from another part of the mine to help and was overcome by afterdamp. A Home Office report on the disaster was laid before the Commons that October. The colliery stopped producing three years later.

Recorded claims

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

• The colliery is mentioned in a list dated 1880 under the Lluest Coal Co. Ltd, and by 1887 was owned by the Abernant Colliery Company and managed by H. Harries. (medium) ¹
• The colliery worked the No. 3 Rhondda seam at a thickness of between twenty-two and forty-two inches. (medium) ¹
• The Inspector of Mines' list for 1896 records 154 men employed at this house-coal colliery. (medium) ¹
• Production ceased at the colliery in 1902. (medium) ¹
• The Garw Valley Heritage Society holds the Home Office report about the Lluest Colliery explosion made to the House of Commons in October 1899, an official report on the explosion, and the site investigation report prepared for the reclamation of the colliery site in 2002. (high) ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Llest Colliery, Pontyrhyl — Welsh Coal Mines
2. (secondary) Garw Valley Heritage Society: archive catalogue — Garw Valley Heritage Society

Record created: 3 September 2026 · Last researched: 3 September 2026