Sprinkle and Nash Colliery

Overview

Sprinkle and Nash worked the Pembrokeshire anthracite coalfield on the Cleddau at Llangwm for ten years, from 1855 to 1865, with a tramway running west to its own quay. Three men were killed in March 1861 when the bucket they were riding fell on them in a shaft that had neither carriage nor guides and was, in the inspector's words, very badly fitted. Four months later the engineer was killed in the winding machinery, and the shaft was still without proper guides.

History

The Durham Mining Museum gives the colliery as opened in 1855 and closed in 1865, under G. S. Philipps and then a limited company. It is also recorded as Nash and Sprinkle Colliery, and the two names are used interchangeably in the sources. Coflein's record of the quay, drawn from the first edition twenty-five inch Ordnance Survey of 1868 and 1869, shows what the site amounted to: entrances to three coal pits, two engine houses, and a tramway running westwards to a formal quay at Sprinkle. The quay at Nash itself is noted as undeveloped, and modern aerial photography shows two possible ship-shaped mud berths in the intertidal mud there. Three deaths are recorded here in ten years and two of them turn on the same failing. On 19 March 1861 three colliers were killed when the bucket in the shaft fell on them; the inspector's note reads that there was no carriage or guides in the shaft and that it was very badly fitted (see Disasters, below). On 21 July that year James Allen, the engineer, aged forty, was entangled in the winding machinery, and the note against his name records that the shaft was still without proper guides four months after three men had died for want of them. John Warlon, a collier of twenty-five, was killed by a fall of stone on 2 October 1865, the year the colliery closed.

Geology

Sprinkle and Nash worked the Pembrokeshire coalfield, whose coal is generally high-quality anthracite in seams that are mostly thin. No seam names have been found in the sources read for this record.

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

Workings

Three coal pits with two engine houses between them, and a tramway running west to a formal quay at Sprinkle on the Cleddau; the quay at Nash is recorded as undeveloped. The shaft in which three men died in 1861 had neither carriage nor guides and was described by the inspector as very badly fitted, and it was still without proper guides when the engineer was killed in the winding machinery four months later. Shaft depths have not been found.

Closure

The Durham Mining Museum gives the closure as 1865, the year of the last recorded death here.

What remains

Coflein records two possible ship-shaped mud berths visible in the intertidal mud at Nash on aerial photography flown between 2006 and 2009. No account of the pits themselves as they stand today has been found in the sources read for this record.

Possible mud berths in the intertidal at Nash; the quay at Sprinkle survives as a separate recorded site.

Related mines

• Hook Colliery — Neighbouring pits on the Daugleddau, both working the Pembrokeshire anthracite and both shipping from their own quays on the tidal water.
• Landshipping Colliery — Both Pembrokeshire anthracite collieries on the Cleddau estuary a few miles apart.

Nearby mines

• Landshipping Colliery — 5.3 km SE
• Hook Colliery — 6.6 km E
• Loveston Colliery — 10.1 km E
• Grove Colliery, Kilgetty — 14.1 km E
• Kilgetty Colliery — 14.3 km E

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.

• The first edition twenty-five inch Ordnance Survey of 1868-9 shows entrances to three coal pits, two engine houses, and a tramway running westwards to a formal quay at Sprinkle. The quay at Nash itself is noted as undeveloped. ¹
• The shaft in which three men were killed in March 1861 had no carriage and no guides and was, in the inspector's words, very badly fitted. When James Allen, the engineer, was killed in the winding machinery on 21 July of the same year, the note against his name records that the shaft was still without proper guides. ^2,3

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Quay, Nash and Sprinkle Colliery — Coflein, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales
2. (secondary) Sprinkle and Nash Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
3. (secondary) Nash and Sprinkle, 19 March 1861 — Durham Mining Museum

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