Milfraen Colliery

Overview

Milfraen stood on the open mountain of Cefn Coch three miles north-west of Blaenavon, one of the highest and bleakest colliery sites in South Wales. It was opened about 1843, given a new shaft by Jayne and Co. in 1865, closed in 1884 and reopened by the Blaenavon company, which sank it 236 yards to the Old Coal seam. Two accidents define its record: five men tipped out of an ascending cage in 1902 when it fouled ironwork in the shaft, and nine killed in 1929 when firedamp was fired by sparking at the switch of a coal cutter. The colliery closed in 1933, four years after the second.

History

Milfraen was originally opened in 1843. Jayne and Co. sank a new shaft in 1865 and worked the colliery until 1884, when it closed; it was reopened some years later by the Blaenavon Iron and Steel Company, which by 1900 employed 199 people underground and 23 on the surface working the Old Coal seam, reached at 236 yards. In 1908 it was returned together with the No. 2 Garn pit and Kay's Slope under the manager Caradog Davies, and in 1918 the Milfraen slant and pit with Kay's Slope employed 1,084 people between them. A list of 1923 gives 677 at Milfraen working the No. 2 and Yard seams, and the Durham Mining Museum's figure for the colliery alone that year is 494. On 4 March 1902 a cage carrying men up the 250-yard shaft touched some ironwork and tipped five of them out to their deaths, among them a father and son, David and Edward Stollard, who had started work at the colliery only that morning. The colliery had employed five or six hundred people and had been standing closed for a period; it was in the course of being reopened when, at half past eight on the morning of 10 July 1929, an explosion in the Mapstones District killed nine of the sixty-five people underground. The inquiry found ventilation inadequate, gas built up in consequence, and the ignition caused by electrical sparking at the switch of a faulty coal-cutting machine (see Disasters, below). Employment collapsed afterwards: 24 in 1933 and five in 1937.

Geology

Milfraen worked the Old Coal seam at 236 yards under the moorland of Cefn Coch, with the No. 2 and Yard seams named in 1923. This is the high northern rim of the South Wales coalfield above Blaenavon, where the measures come to the surface on open mountain and the collieries sat far above their villages.

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

Workings

A shaft 250 yards deep with a slant alongside it, returned in the Inspector's lists together with the No. 2 Garn pit and Kay's Slope. A branch railway climbed the mountain to the colliery from the Blaenavon to Waunafon line. Coal cutters were in use underground by 1929.

Closure

The colliery closed in 1933, four years after the 1929 explosion; the Lists of Mines return 24 people in 1933 and five in 1937 and 1940, the last of them keeping the site rather than working it.

What remains

The site is open moorland with concrete and stone foundations still showing, sheets of asbestos roofing lying about, and the disused shaft used as a dump for rubbish. The trackbed of the Milfraen Colliery branch can be walked across Waun Afon.

Nearby mines

• Big Pit — 2.3 km SE
• Blaenavon Ironworks — 3.1 km E
• Cinder Pits — 3.4 km E
• Pen-ffordd-goch Ironstone Scours — 3.6 km NE, Blaenau Gwent
• Marine Colliery — 3.7 km S, Blaenau Gwent

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.

• Milfraen was originally opened in 1843; Jayne and Co. sank a new shaft in 1865 and worked it until 1884, when it closed, and it was reopened some years later by the Blaenavon Iron and Steel Company. ¹
• The colliery was sunk to the Old Coal seam at a depth of 236 yards, in a shaft 250 yards deep. ¹
• On 4 March 1902 a cage in which men were ascending the 250-yard shaft touched some ironwork and tipped five of them out to their deaths, among them a father and son, David and Edward Stollard, who had begun work at the colliery that same morning. ¹
• At 8.30 on the morning of 10 July 1929, with 65 people underground, an explosion in the Mapstones District killed nine; the inquiry found ventilation inadequate and the gas ignited by electrical sparks from a faulty coal-cutting machine. ^1,2
• The colliery employed 494 people in 1923, 24 in 1933 and five in 1937. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Milfraen Colliery, Blaenavon — Welsh Coal Mines, from the Inspector of Mines lists
2. (primary) Durham Mining Museum: Milfraen Colliery — Durham Mining Museum, from the Lists of Mines
3. (observational) Site of Milfraen Colliery (photographed 2015) — Geograph Britain and Ireland, Gareth James

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