Tower Colliery, Hirwaun
The name Tower comes from a folly constructed by the Crawshay family on Hirwaun common in 1848. William Williams began producing
house coal, manufacturing coal and fire clay from a drift mine here named Tower Graig in 1864.In 1878 Tower colliery was opened by
the Bute Trustees.
From the Inspector of Mines list of 1896 Tower Graig colliery was discontinued. Also from the same list, Tower Colliery owned by the Marques of Bute, producing steam coal with a workforce of 420 men. Later Powell Duffryn Ltd. became the owners. A new shaft was sunk in the early 1940's at a depth of 165 yards. The shaft is used for transporting manpower only. In 1945 there were 1,045 men working here. During 1958 No. 3 drift was driven to the No. 4 workings, it became the ventilation intake and used for conveying coal and materials. An explosion of firedamp occurred at this colliery in 1962 killing 9 men. In 1994 British Coal closed the colliery because they thought it would be uneconomical to keep it working. However a successful bid was made for the colliery by a buy-out group formed by the workforce and in 1995 they produced 450,000 tons of high grade anthracite, making over ?4 million in pre-tax profit. This colliery is still in production and still running at a profit. It is the only deep mine left in the whole of Wales.
Information on individual collieries kindly supplied by www.welshcoalmines.co.uk