Pant-y-Waun Colliery

Overview

Two levels near the northern outcrop of the coalfield at Dowlais, working the Black Vein seam under Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds in the early twentieth century, the peak years of the vast Dowlais Ironworks that they fed.

History

Pant-y-Waun Colliery consisted of a series of two levels near the northern outcrop of the coalfield at Dowlais, opened around 1873. It worked the Black Vein seam, employing 135 men in 1912 and 157 in 1913 under the ownership of Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds Limited, before being abandoned in May 1924.

The Dowlais Ironworks the colliery fed had been founded in 1759 and, at its Victorian peak in 1845, ran 18 blast furnaces, employed 7,300 people and produced 88,400 tons of iron a year — for a time the largest ironworks in the world. Sir Ivor Guest sold the works in 1899 to Arthur Keen, who formed Guest, Keen & Co. Ltd; in 1902 Keen bought Nettlefolds Limited to create Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds (GKN), the company that owned Pant-y-Waun through its working life. The main Dowlais works survived into the 1930s before closing in 1936, largely as a result of the Great Depression, by which time GKN had already built a new works at East Moors, Cardiff. The Pant-y-Waun name also belongs to a shaft: the industrial history of the northern Rhymney valley records a Pant-y-waun Pit served, with Carnau Drift, Mine Pits Nos 1 and 2 and Lower Four Feet Pit, by the Pant-y-Waun Mineral Railway that the ironworks opened in 1875 and worked with its own locomotives, and closed about 1886, while the NMRS carries the two levels on to 1924. Little of any of it survives the opencasting and reclamation of the ground. The Mining Remediation Authority's abandonment plan 837 lists Pent-y-wain Nos 1 and 2 among the Dowlais workings abandoned in 1878, which fits the mine pits of the 1875 railway rather than the levels that worked on.

Geology

Worked the Black Vein seam of the South Wales Coalfield.

Workings

Two levels near the northern outcrop of the coalfield, working the Black Vein seam.

Closure

Abandoned in May 1924.

What's uncertain

Points where sources disagree or the record could not be settled; both accounts are kept. All open questions in the archive.

• Pant-y-waun Pit, Carno Drift and Mine Pits Nos 1 and 2 were closed about 1886, after which the railway served Tunnel Pit and Fochriw instead. (uncertain) ⁴

Recorded claims

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

• A series of two levels near the northern outcrop of the coalfield at Dowlais, opened around 1873, working the Black Vein seam. ¹
• Employed 135 men in 1912 and 157 in 1913 under Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds Limited, before abandonment in May 1924. ¹
• The Dowlais Ironworks, at its 1845 peak, ran 18 blast furnaces and employed 7,300 people; Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds was formed in 1899–1902 when Arthur Keen bought the works and merged them with Nettlefolds Limited, and owned Pant-y-Waun through its GKN years. ²
• Named among the Dowlais Iron Company's collieries, worked for both coal and ironstone and abandoned in May 1924, it worked the Lower-Four-Feet and the Little (Seven-Feet) seams. ³
• In 1875 the Pant-y-Waun Mineral Railway linked Dowlais Ironworks with Pant-y-waun Pit, Carnau Drift, Mine Pits Nos 1 and 2 and Lower Four Feet Pit, worked by the ironworks' locomotives. ⁴
• Pant-y-waun Pit, Carno Drift and Mine Pits Nos 1 and 2 were closed about 1886, after which the railway served Tunnel Pit and Fochriw instead. (uncertain) ⁴
• Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan 837 covers Pant-y-waun (Pent-y-wain) Mine Pits Nos 1 and 2 among the Dowlais workings abandoned in 1878, in the seams coal and ironstone: black pin soap, three coals and clay, upper, little, lower four feet, spotted, red, blue, lumpy, rosser. ⁵

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Small collieries of the Dowlais Cwmbargoed & Penydarren areas — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (secondary) Dowlais Ironworks — Wikipedia
3. (secondary) Dowlais Collieries — Northern Mine Research Society
4. (observational) Northern Rhymney Valley: industrial archaeology and history — Industrial Gwent
5. (primary) DOWLAIS, BANWAIN, BLACK BALL, BLAEN RHAS, CARNO, CWMCENOL, MEADOW, PENT-Y-WAIN NOS 1 & 2, PENRHEOL (PEN-YR- HEOL), PENYDARREN NOS 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, TYLA DOWLAIS (Mine Remediation Authority abandonment — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority

Record created: 15 September 2026 · Last researched: 24 September 2026