Cymmer Colliery

Glyncorrwg, Afan Valley 853963

This mine was owned by the Cymmer Glyncorrwg Coal Company of Cardiff in 1893/6 and in 1896 it employed 60 men underground and 11 men on the surface producing house and manufacturing coals. W.M. Thomas was the manager at that time.

It was not listed in 1878 or 1908 but an advert in the Colliery Guardian in 1914 invited tenders to deepen the No.1 Pit to c200 yards at 20 feet diameter.

There was also a Cymmer Graigola Colliery that was worked in 1925 by the Corrwg Vale Colliery Company Limited.

On the 26th of July 1894, Phillip Davis, aged 33 years and a collier, died under a roof fall. So did Evan Lewis aged 55 years and also a collier who died on the 3rd of February 1897. On the 5th of November 1899, E. Thomas aged 56 years, while going to his work at a steam pump on a Sunday morning climbed over a fall of roof which had broken a steam pipe and was so overcome by the heat that he died shortly after being brought out. The doctor’s evidence showed he was not scalded, and that death was due to shock and partial suffocation.

Some statistics:

• 1896: Manpower: 71.
• 1899: Manpower: 88.
• 1900: Manpower: 124.
• 1901: Manpower: 122.
• 1902: Manpower: 147.

Information supplied by Ray Lawrence and used here with his permission.