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Cynheidre Colliery

Buildings and structures in CarmarthenshireCollieries in South WalesLlanelli RuralUnderground mines in WalesWales geography stubs

Cynheidre Colliery was a coal mine located in the Gwendraeth valley, in Carmarthenshire, South Wales. Opened in 1954, it closed in 1989. Cynheidre was developed by the National Coal Board as one of the West Wales "super pits" alongside Abernant Colliery in the River Amman valley, a post-World War II investment intended to keep economic coal mining a viable industry in the area. Created to exploit 196 square miles (510 km2) of deep lying anthracite seams, it was envisaged to eventually encompass the working of the drift mines at the Great Mountain Colliery and Pentremawr.Between 1954 and 1956, shafts No.1 (upcast 798 yards (730 m)) and No.2 (downcast 786 yards (719 m)) were sunk 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Pentremawr, to give economic access to the deeper lying extents of the anthracite seams which couldn't be worked economically by slant mining.In 1955, shaft No.3 was created. Originally sunk for ventilating Glynhebog drift mine, it was extended to a depth of 760 yards (690 m) to meet the workings at Cynheidre, providing an upcast. By 1960, the colliery employed 650 men producing 30,757 tons of coal.In 1962, shaft No.4 downcast was created next to shaft No.3, to a depth of 700 yards (640 m). After these developments, Pentremawr was integrated under Cynheidre in 1973, connected both underground as well as overground by the Llanelly and Mynydd Mawr Railway.From both the structure of local geology and knowledge from workings at Pentremawr, it was known that the coal field suffered from methane gas intrusion. On 6 April 1971 six miners lost their lives in an explosion of methane gas and fine coal dust. In 1972, Cynheidre produced 472,000 tons of coal employing 1,430 men.Cynheidre was to be the site of the proposed Carway Fawr Drift Mine. Development work started in 1986, but along with the residual Cynheidre underground workings, closed in January 1989 while employing 1,043 men.In 2006, the site was proposed as the location of a human waste-to-compost plant, but was turned down on planning permission. In 2009 Gwendraeth Valley Recycling Ltd established a Waste Transfer Station / Recycling Yard at the site of the former Carway Fawr winding shed/ control room and yard, within Cynheidre Colliery to the North of shafts 1 and 2.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Cynheidre Colliery (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Cynheidre Colliery
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N 51.7505 ° E -4.184 °
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SA15 5DQ , Llanelli Rural
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Pentremawr Colliery

Pentremawr Colliery was a coal mine, located in the Gwendraeth valley in Carmarthenshire, South Wales. Due to the angle and depth of the anthracite in this part of Wales, Pentremawr was a slant mine, and hence access and extraction of the coal did not need a shaft. However, the commercial extraction of coal is limited by geological faults in the area. The first two attempts were aborted in 1870, after a huge fault was encountered. But eventually three slants known as Capel Ifan No's 1, 2 and 3 were opened to the Gwendraeth, Braslyd, Gras and Trichwart seams. By 1896, there were 160 men working at the colliery, and it was during this time of operation that Colliery Chief Mechanic Jones Jones (1879–1976), invented the renowned Pontyberem safety lamp.In 1913, a fourth slant was driven to work the Pumquart seam, and so by 1923 there were 956 men working at the colliery. In 1927, Pentremawr Colliery Company Ltd. was absorbed into the Amalgamated Anthracite Combine, with records showing that 1,007 men employed. The company ploughed in money to fix problems associated with the initial local geological fault, resulting in the discovery of the 8-foot-thick (2.4 m) Big Vein seam in 1939. Post World War II, in 1956 900 men produced 226,273 tons. Due to the geological faults in the area, the mine was susceptible to incursion from methane gas. Two miners were killed from explosions caused by methane gas and coal dust explosions in 1945, and one in 1965. But on 1 September 1966, Pentremawr was the site of the largest outburst of methane and fine coal dust in the UK, when 1,000 tons of coal dust erupted from the Big Vein: no one was killed on that occasion. However, on 6 April 1971, six men were killed and 69 others suffered varying degrees of asphyxia.Developing geological problems brought about the closure of the No.4 Pumquart slant in 1968. In 1974, the National Coal Board amalgamated Pentremawr with the Cynheidre Colliery, which itself closed in 1989.