Photo: OS map of Cwm-Nant-Llwyd Colliery in 1898 (Crown Copyright 1898)

Cwm-Nant-Llwyd Mines – Cilybebyll

This deep mine (600 feet deep) was sunk and owned by The South Wales Primrose Coal Company Ltd and work commenced in the early 1860s. Several drift mines were also opened on the surface of the leased area. The technology of transporting the coal from Cwm-Nant-Llwyd Colliery down to the main line railway at the foot of the mountain was ingenious and a marvel of its time. A brilliant railway engineer devised the complicated surface railways – self-acting winding drums to lower the drams of coal down the mountainside and then raise the empty drams back to the higher level and on to the mine for refilling. A substantial amount of this railway technology is still extant (2017).

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