Ogilvie Colliery

Overview

Powell Duffryn's Darran valley pit, sunk from 1918 with concrete-lined shafts and machine mining from the start — an unusually modern colliery for its date. A fire in 1971 helped finish it and it closed in April 1975.

History

Powell Duffryn began sinking Ogilvie on the eastern bank of the Bargoed Rhymney river between Deri and Fochriw in 1918, and coal came up in 1923 with 877 men employed. The shafts were lined with concrete, an innovation for the company, and the colliery was worked from the start with electricity and compressed air brought from Bargoed and with the newest machine mining — coal cutters and conveyors — rather than being converted to them later. The official returns show the workforce climbing from 289 in 1923, when the surface still outnumbered the underground three to one and the pit was barely started, to 1,173 by 1933 and 1,239 by 1940. At nationalisation in 1947 it had 765 on the books and produced 307,000 tons of gas, household and steam coal. The pit began to have trouble in the late 1960s, a fire in 1971 made it worse, and the National Coal Board closed Ogilvie in April 1975. The ground is now the Darran Valley Country Park.

Geology

The South Wales Coalfield on the eastern side of the Rhymney valley, worked for gas, household and steam coal.

Workings

Two shafts twelve feet in diameter, sunk between 1918 and 1923 at an average of twelve and a half yards a week and lined with concrete, which Powell Duffryn had not done before. Both used rope guides: the North, the downcast, went to 483 yards and the South, the upcast, sixty yards away, to 546. The colliery ran on electricity and compressed air piped from Bargoed, with coal cutters and conveyors installed at the outset. The 1953 modernisation remade it. The North pit bottom was raised to the 420-yard level and a semi-horizontal locomotive road driven 2,200 yards north to intercept every seam from the Elled down to the Lower Four Feet, worked by three thirteen-tonne English Electric battery locomotives hauling Tredomen drams of fifty-nine cubic feet on a three-foot gauge. Winding went to double-deck cages, two drams a deck and 1,320 drams a day. Three Sulzer pumps of 750 horsepower each stood in a new pumphouse at the 420-yard level with a million-gallon storage road. An aerial ropeway built for the waste lasted only a few years before technical problems had it dismantled, after which the rubbish went to the tip on Euclid tippers.

Closure

Trouble began in the late 1960s and a fire in 1971 hastened the end; the colliery closed in April 1975.

What remains

The colliery site is the Darran Valley Country Park. The colliery's own vaulted explosives store, a typical early twentieth-century one, still stands within the park, and the former colliery manager's house survives nearby.

The vaulted explosives store, recorded by the Royal Commission and standing in the country park, and the manager's house.

Redevelopment

Darran Valley Country Park on the colliery site.

Related mines

• Bargoed Colliery — Ogilvie was worked on electricity and compressed air piped from Bargoed, two miles down the valley, and both were Powell Duffryn pits.
• McLaren Colliery — The two were joined underground in August 1958: a long descending man-riding road ran from McLaren's pit bottom to the end of Ogilvie's new locomotive road, and McLaren was kept open afterwards only to carry men in.
• Penallta Colliery — Both were Powell Duffryn collieries of the Rhymney valley sunk in the company's twentieth-century expansion, and worked through the same company structure to nationalisation.

Nearby mines

• McLaren Colliery — 1.3 km NE
• Bedlinog Colliery — 2.5 km SW, Merthyr Tydfil
• New Tredegar Colliery — 2.5 km E
• Elliot Colliery — 2.8 km E
• Darran Colliery — 3.9 km SE

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.

• Sinking began in 1918 and coal production started in 1923 with 877 men employed. The North downcast shaft is 483 yards deep and the South upcast 546 yards; both were lined with concrete, an innovation for Powell Duffryn, and the colliery was worked with electricity and compressed air from Bargoed and with the latest machine mining, coal cutters and conveyors, from the start. ¹
• The official Lists of Mines return 289 employed in 1923, of whom only 86 were below ground, rising to 1,173 by 1933 and 1,239 by 1940. At nationalisation in 1947 the colliery had 765 employed, 697 of them underground, and produced 307,000 tons of gas, household and steam coal. ²
• The colliery began to experience problems in the late 1960s, and a fire in 1971 helped lead to its closure in April 1975. ¹
• The Royal Commission records a typical early twentieth-century vaulted explosives store from the colliery still standing within the Darran Valley Country Park, and dates the colliery's working life from the First World War to 1975. ³
• Powell Duffryn sank both shafts between 1918 and 1923, twelve feet in diameter and lined with concrete, at an average advance of twelve and a half yards a week. Both used rope guides. The North, the downcast, went to 483 yards; the South, the upcast, stood sixty yards away and went to 546. Coal winding began in February 1923 from the No. 10 landing, in the Red Vein and Upper Four Feet, with 877 men employed under the first manager, Captain David Hughes. ⁴
• A modernisation plan begun in 1953 raised the North pit bottom to the 420-yard level and drove a new semi-horizontal locomotive road 2,200 yards north to intercept every seam from the Elled at the top to the Lower Four Feet at the bottom, worked by three thirteen-tonne English Electric battery locomotives. Winding went to double-deck cages carrying two drams a deck, a capacity of 1,320 drams a day. A new pumphouse at the 420-yard level took three 750-horsepower Sulzer pumps of 80,000 gallons an hour with a million-gallon storage road beside them, and a new coal preparation plant and weatherproof heapstead were built. The whole scheme finished in 1961 and cost an estimated £2.75 million, £1.5 million of it on the surface. ⁴
• As part of the same scheme McLaren Colliery at Abertysswg was connected to the end of Ogilvie's locomotive road by a long descending man-riding road from its own pit bottom, the men carried on a train of man-riding coaches called a spake. Integration was completed in August 1958 and McLaren stayed open only for man-riding after that. Ogilvie was also connected to Rhymney Merthyr Colliery at Pontlottyn, which was kept open for ventilation and maintenance. ⁴
• The new pit-top equipment was semi-automatic and pneumatically operated, and because the compressed-air system had no air driers it froze on the coldest days. The remedy was large coal-fired braziers placed around both pit tops. ⁴
• The pithead baths held 1,112 men with 1,080 lockers on two decks, and opened at three o'clock on the afternoon of Saturday 25 March 1952. ⁴
• A fire broke out underground in the South pit during 1971 and put an end to coal production in that pit. The colliery closed in 1975. ⁴

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Ogilvie Colliery, Caerphilly — Mindat
2. (secondary) Ogilvie Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) Ogilvie Colliery Explosives Store, Deri (NPRN 96551) — Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales
4. (secondary) Ogilvie Colliery, Deri — Welsh Coal Mines

Record created: 11 September 2026 · Last researched: 11 September 2026