Mynydd Newydd Colliery

Overview

A Swansea pit whose miners cut a chapel out of the coal face — sixteen yards by six, whitewashed, lit by candles and seating a hundred — and held a service in it at six o'clock every Monday morning for the next sixty years.

History

Mynydd Newydd was sunk in 1843 by Vivian and Company, later the Swansea Coal Company, to reach the Five-Feet seam. Vivian and Sons of Port Talbot bought it in 1866, when it was reckoned to hold some seventy feet of workable coal in seams of two feet and over, dipping ten degrees to the west; it later passed to the Mynydd Newydd Colliery Company. Employment peaked at 435 men in 1922 and had fallen to 160 by 1927; output ran from 59,946 tons in 1889 to 163,030 tons in 1894, and was down to 21,500 tons from 110 men by 1953. The colliery was nationalised in 1947 and closed on 1 July 1955. What it is remembered for happened underground within two years of the sinking. After a fatal explosion, the miners began holding prayer meetings below ground, and with the management's agreement cut a chapel into a worked-out part of the Five-Feet seam. The first service was held there on 18 August 1845 and Monday morning services continued for about sixty years, led by the miners themselves rather than by visiting clergy.

Geology

The colliery worked the coals of the western South Wales field, taking the Five-Feet seam first and then, after running into a fault, deepening to the Six-Feet at 258 yards — a seam averaging nine feet four inches thick. That thickness is what made the chapel possible: a worked-out chamber in a seam of that height leaves standing room, which a two-foot seam never would.

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

Workings

Shaft mining, the Five-Feet seam worked at 116 yards and the Six-Feet at 258. The chapel was cut in the Five-Feet seam near the pit bottom: a chamber about sixteen yards long by six wide, held up by pit props along the sides with plank seats set between them, the roof whitened with lime so that it read as a ceiling, a wooden desk for a pulpit, and candles for light. It held around a hundred men.

Closure

The colliery closed on 1 July 1955 under the National Coal Board; Coal Authority abandonment plans are dated November 1955. Some accounts note an earlier closure in 1932, when men went down to bring the chapel's Bible and hymn book back up.

What remains

Nothing survives on the ground; the site at Fforestfach has been built over. The chapel is inaccessible and the workings are long abandoned.

None. The chapel's Bible does survive, however — the 1904 volume, inscribed as having been used for the Monday prayer meetings from 28 November 1904, was rescued by a miner's descendant when the pit closed and given to the national museum in 2019. It is now at Big Pit.

Redevelopment

The colliery site has been absorbed into the Fforestfach area of Swansea.

Abandoned workings can be dangerous — unstable ground, uncapped shafts, flooding and bad air are common even where a site looks safe from the surface. This entry describes history and general location only; it is not an access guide.

Recorded claims

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

• The colliery was sunk in 1843 by Vivian and Company, later the Swansea Coal Company, to reach the Five-Feet seam; Vivian and Sons of Port Talbot bought it in 1866. ¹
• The Five-Feet seam was worked at 116 yards; after a fault the mine was deepened to the Six-Feet seam at 258 yards, averaging nine feet four inches thick. ¹
• An underground chapel was cut in the Five-Feet seam after a fatal explosion, measuring about sixteen yards by six, supported by pit props with plank seats between them, its roof whitened with lime, a wooden desk for a pulpit and candles for light; it held around a hundred men. ²
• The first service in the chapel was held on 18 August 1845, and Monday morning services continued for about sixty years, led by the miners themselves. ²
• The chapel's successive Bibles were replaced in 1859 and 1899; the 1904 volume, inscribed as used for Monday prayer meetings from 28 November 1904, was saved when the pit closed and given to Amgueddfa Cymru in 2019. ²
• Employment peaked at 435 men in 1922 and fell to 160 by 1927; output ran from 59,946 tons in 1889 to 163,030 tons in 1894, and was 21,500 tons from 110 men by 1953. ¹
• The colliery closed on 1 July 1955; abandonment plans are dated November 1955. ^3,1

Photographs & further reading

This page doesn't try to reproduce everything — these are the best original sources found for this mine.

Sources

1. (primary) Mynydd Newydd Colliery 1843-1955 — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (primary) Underground Bible — Amgueddfa Cymru — Museum Wales
3. (primary) Mine plans SWR2577 and SW209: Hopewell, Wimberry, Cannop and associated gales — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans catalogue

Record created: 24 August 2026 · Last researched: 24 August 2026