Mines in Cardiff

Cardiff is not a mining city in the way the valleys behind it are, but it was built by mining all the same: the docks that made it the greatest coal port in the world handled other men's coal, brought down from the Rhondda and the Taff. Its own extractive history is quieter and older — Carboniferous limestone and dolomite quarried from the Garth ridge in the north, haematite mined beneath it, and a little Silurian building stone from the outcrop at Penylan that turned out to hold some of the best fossils in Wales.

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MineWorkedCommodities
Lan Colliery 18th century–before 1914 Coal
Little Garth Mine Early 19th century–1884 Iron, Ochre
Penylan Quarry By the mid-19th century–From the 19th century Sandstone
Rumney Quarry 19th century–1920s Limestone, Sandstone
South Cambria Colliery 1894–August 1914 Coal

Record created: 5 September 2026 · Last researched: 5 September 2026

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