Loveston Colliery

Overview

A small anthracite slant mine at Loveston in south Pembrokeshire, opened in 1932 in ground that had been worked long before, and remembered almost entirely for the disaster that ended it. On 26 May 1936 water burst in from unrecorded old workings and drowned seven of the twenty men underground; the colliery never recovered and closed the following July. The inrush became a standing example, cited by His Majesty's Inspectors of Mines, of the danger of assuming that the 'old men' had not worked below the water level of their day.

History

Coal had been got around Loveston and Jeffreyston long before the twentieth century, in the small and heavily faulted anthracite field of south Pembrokeshire. The colliery that carries the name here was a late and modest venture: the Loveston Colliery Co. Ltd opened it in 1932 in an area already worked, driving a slant rather than sinking a shaft. It was never large. Its best year was 1934, when it raised 3,420 tons. Contemporary newspaper reporting described the colliery as owned by a French company, which does not sit easily with the registered company name and has not been reconciled from the sources read here. The coal was worth having. Reporting the disaster, the press called Loveston a producer of some of the finest anthracite in the world, and the Pembrokeshire field had long had that reputation even though its geology made working it awkward and its pits small. On the morning of 26 May 1936 twenty men were at work, some of them on hands and knees in a drift only four feet high, when water broke in from old workings above and to the rise. Seven were drowned (see Disasters, below). The water rose 150 yards up the 390-yard slant by which the workings were reached, and pumping failed to hold it. The colliery closed on 27 July 1937, a little over a year later. The official view, published by His Majesty's Inspectors of Mines in 1937, drew a general lesson from it. No plans of the old workings were ever found, but the inspectors doubted that plans would have helped, because an isolated area of thick coal below the old water level had been worked and would not have been shown. It is never safe, they wrote, to assume that earlier workers could not go below their water levels; they did so in dry seasons and did not always record it.

Geology

Loveston lies in the Pembrokeshire coalfield, the far western end of the South Wales field, where the coals are anthracite of the highest rank and the measures have been severely folded and faulted. The seams are broken and irregular, which kept the collieries small and made slants driven into the measures a more practical way in than deep shafts. The same structure made the field dangerous: water stood in old workings whose extent nobody had recorded, and the 1936 inrush at Loveston came from precisely such ground.

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

Workings

The mine was a slant, a roadway driven down into the measures from the surface, 390 yards long. Working places were cramped: newspaper reporting of the disaster describes twenty men at work in a drift only four feet high, several of them on hands and knees. Haulage was by rope, and it was an iron haulage rope that some of the escaping men seized to pull themselves clear of rising water. There was also an airshaft, by which others got out. No plans existed of the older workings above and to the rise, which is what made the ground dangerous.

Closure

The colliery did not reopen in any substantial way after the inrush of 26 May 1936 and closed on 27 July 1937. The water that filled the workings had risen 150 yards up the 390-yard slant, and although pumping began at once it was not possible to recover most of the bodies for days. For a mine whose best recorded output was 3,420 tons, the cost of unwatering and re-establishing workings that had proved to be undercut by unmapped old levels was decisive.

What remains

No recent site description has been located. Searches of Geograph and Wikimedia Commons for the Loveston workings returned nothing showing them; the one Geograph photograph that matched on name proved to be of a colliery site at Lovestone in Ayrshire, several hundred miles away, and was discarded. What survives on the ground at Loveston has therefore not been established here.

Not established. No fetched source read for this record describes surviving surface structures at Loveston.

Nearby mines

• Grove Colliery, Kilgetty — 4.0 km E
• Kilgetty Colliery — 4.2 km E
• Bonville's Court Colliery — 4.9 km SE
• Wood Level Colliery — 5.0 km E
• Hook Colliery — 5.5 km NW

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

Disasters & major incidents

• Loveston Colliery Inrush
  26 May 1936 · Flooding / Inundation · 7 fatalities
  On the morning of 26 May 1936 water burst into the workings of Loveston Colliery, a small anthracite slant near Jeffreyston in south Pembrokeshire, from old workings above and to the rise of which no plans existed. Twenty men were underground, several of them crawling in a drift only four feet high. Thirteen got out, some by seizing an iron haulage rope as the water rose over their heads and others through an airshaft. Seven were drowned. One of them, Joseph Phillips, had already reached safety and turned back for his younger brother Ernest; both died. The water rose 150 yards up the 390-yard slant and could not be held. The colliery closed the following July.

Recorded claims

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

• The Loveston Colliery Co. Ltd opened the colliery in 1932 in an area that had been worked previously. It was a small slant mine whose highest recorded output was 3,420 tons in 1934. ¹
• Seven men were drowned on 26 May 1936 when water rushed in from old workings. The water rose 150 yards up the 390-yard slant by which the workings were approached, and was being pumped out as fast as possible when the Secretary for Mines reported to the Commons the next day. ^1,2
• His Majesty's Inspectors of Mines concluded in 1937 that no plans of the old workings had been found, but that even had they existed they would probably not have shown the isolated area of thick coal worked below the old water level, adding that it is never safe to assume earlier workers could not work to the dip of water levels. ¹
• Contemporary newspaper reporting described the colliery as owned by a French company, while Welsh Coal Mines records the operator as the Loveston Colliery Co. Ltd. The two have not been reconciled. (disputed) ^1,3
• The colliery closed on 27 July 1937, fourteen months after the inrush. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Loveston — Welsh Coal Mines
2. (primary) Colliery Accident, Pembrokeshire, HC Deb 27 May 1936 vol 312 cc2017-8 — Hansard, UK Parliament
3. (primary) Miner Gives Life For Brother: Heroic Sacrifice In Flooded Pit, 27 May 1936 — Contemporary newspaper report, transcribed by the Durham Mining Museum

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