Cynheidre Colliery was a

coal mine Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

located in the

Gwendraeth valley The River Gwendraeth ( cy, Afon Gwendraeth) is a river in Carmarthenshire in West Wales. It has two almost equal branches that have their confluence in their joint estuary at Carmarthen Bay. The Gwendraeth Fawr (''large Gwendraeth'' in English) ...

, in

Carmarthenshire Carmarthenshire ( cy, Sir Gaerfyrddin; or informally ') is a county in the south-west of Wales. The three largest towns are Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford. Carmarthen is the county town and administrative centre. The county is known as ...

, South Wales. Opened in 1954, it closed in 1989. Cynheidre was developed by the

National Coal Board The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "ve ...

as one of the West Wales "super pits" alongside

Abernant Colliery Abernant Colliery was a coal mine in the River Amman valley at Pwllfawatkin, north of Pontardawe and north of Swansea, West Wales. Development Abernant was developed by the National Coal Board as one of the West Wales "super pits" alongside Cyn ...

in the River Amman valley, a post-

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

investment intended to keep economic coal mining a viable industry in the area. Created to exploit of deep lying anthracite seams, it was envisaged to eventually encompass the working of the

drift mine Drift mining is either the mining of an ore deposit by underground methods, or the working of coal seams accessed by adits driven into the surface outcrop of the coal bed. A drift mine is an underground mine in which the entry or access is above ...

s at the Great Mountain Colliery and Pentremawr. Between 1954 and 1956, shafts No.1 (upcast ) and No.2 (downcast ) were sunk 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 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 . After these developments, Pentremawr was integrated under Cynheidre in 1973, connected both underground as well as overground by the

Llanelly and Mynydd Mawr Railway The Llanelly and Mynydd Mawr Railway was authorised in 1875. It made use of part of the long defunct Carmarthenshire Railway or Tramroad of 1801. The older line began running trains in 1803, and was a plateway of about 4 feet gauge, with horse ...

. From both the structure of local geology and knowledge from workings at Pentremawr, it was known that the coal field suffered from

methane gas Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Ear ...

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 Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building per ...

References

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.

External links

Cynheidre Colliery at WelshCoalMines.co.ukCynheidre Colliery
at BBC Wales Collieries in South Wales Underground mines in Wales Buildings and structures in Carmarthenshire Llanelli Rural {{Wales-geo-stub