Local History

Llanbradach

Llanbradach Colliery is one of the few fairly complete groups of colliery buildings left in the south Wales coalfield that was the biggest in Britain between 1913 and 1925 and the largest coal-exporting coalfield in the world during its Edwardian heyday. An outstanding group of Pennant Sandstone buildings remain, including; engine houses (NPRN 85052, NPRN 85056), stores, workshops (NPRN 85053, NPRN 85110), fan house (NPRN 85055), revetment walls (NPRN 85111, NPRN 85112) and powder store, mostly dating from 1894 when the colliery started operation. Llanbradach became one of the largest collieries in the coalfield, employing 3,000 in 1913. Building expansion continued until 1915 and the colliery closed in 1961. Its distinctive coal tips survive on the mountain above and to the west of the site (NPRN 420674).

The colliery site was built on four hillside terraces aligned southwest to northeast, the lowest having standard-gauge sidings with narrow-gauge tipplers and coal screens over. The lower middle terrace had the three shafts with the fan house and stores to the southwest and colliery workshops to the northeast. The upper middle terrace had engine-houses, halls and boiler houses (now gone). An upper terrace had most of the south winding-house which had an arched recess on its south east gable to carry winding-cables across to the shaft that stood on the valley bottom. The brick-built reservoir (NPRN 85054) for boiler-feed and condensing water was also on the upper terrace.

A ‘colliery road’ ran at a yet higher level along the northeast edge of the site and above this was a larger concrete reservoir (NPRN 85051), a quarry to obtain the Pennant Sandstone used in the construction of the buildings and revetment walls and a secondary cable-way to the later tip up the mountain.