Been past here a few times on my travels in Wales, finally got around to giving it a go on the way home from one of my Penallta visits. Timed the visit well, somebody was home, but they left by the time we had scoped the site.
I don't know if the heritage group is still active or not, got the impression from their website that they were winding down their efforts and leaving management of the site to the landowners as of December 21. Sounds like a training company (ARC Training) were supposed to be making use of the entire site for plant training going forward, but there was an event of some sort in June, so I'm really not too sure what's going on.
Anyways, to the interesting part...
The History -
The Navigation Colliery at Crumlin utilised two 20ft diameter shafts with a depth of 466 yards, with work sinking them beginning in 1907. Work was completed in 1910, with the shafts reaching the Black Vein (Nine Feet) seam. The North (downcast) shaft was the main winding shaft, using single deck cages with 2 trams, allowing a maximum winding capacity of 700 tons per shift. Blue Pennant stone was used to line the shafts, which was unusual as it was very expensive. This cost paid off however, as virtually no repairs were needed over the life of the mine.
In 1920, work was undertaken to extend the No.2 pit a further 70 yards to the Meadow Vein. The Black and Meadow Veins were the mainstay seams of the colliery, being worked until all the viable coal (Black Vein)was pretty much exhausted in 1958. There were numerous other seams available, with a 1950 NCB report estimating a combined 8,390,000 tons in coal reserves. A subsequent report in February 1958 found that much of the coal in these seams was unworkable, or of very poor quality, leaving only the Meadow Vein, which itself was becoming more difficult to win Coal from.
The Fan House made use of two Walker Bros horizontal twin tandem triple expansion steam engines, one of which is preserved at the National Museum of Wales. In 1950, the ventilation fans were moving 300,000 cubic feet of air per minute.
The Bath House was opened in February 1933 at a cost of £18,000, and had capacity for 800 men. It had 140 cubicles, locker rooms, bottle filling facilities, baths attendants, a boot cleaning and greasing room, and a first aid room. It's in a sorry state today.
The colliery had it's fair share of issues over it's life. There was a fatal accident in October 1910 when a staging collapsed, throwing 20 men into water at the bottom of the shaft. John Stone, from Newport, unfortunately drowned. There was a fatal roof collapse in the Meadow Vein in July 1929. 2 men were injured, and Joseph Walters, from Crumlin unfortunately died. In 1932, it was found that the nearby Oakdale Colliery had been poaching coal reserves belonging to the Navigation Colliery. This was stopped and compensation paid, resulting in 400 men losing their jobs at Oakdale.
There was also issues with water ingress, with a flood reported in 1917 and another more severe flood in June 1938, in which the entire mine was flooded, with water reaching halfway up the shafts. This was a result of workers in the Black Vein Straight North District hitting an underground lake. Emergency pumping took place to clear the mine, and the floor was raised by 39 metres to create a sump and install extra pumping equipment. A section of mine was also dammed off, which remained in place for the remainder of the mines life. The average amount of water pumped up from the mine each day was a staggering 412,000 gallons.
The mine unfortunately didn't survive the closure program of the 1960s, closing in 1967. The shafts were infilled with washery tailings in 1970, so very little remains of them. The remaining colliery buildings were all listed, as they are deemed to be of outstanding architectural significance.
The Explore -
Access is easy enough, with most buildings being accessible. Started at the rear of the site after scrambling down the hill, with the Bath House being the first building we hit. There was some heras fencing blocking the way in, wasn't doing a good job though, it doubled as a door...
A lot of natural decay in here, the building itself is in poor condition, it's a world apart from the one at Penallta!
The obligatory chair was located in here, bit battered though...
I've always found the way sockets and switches rust away rather interesting... Strange
Had a bit of a scare when we made our exit, bumped into a couple of people, but they were a local couple having a mooch like us, so all was well.
We then worked our way upwards towards the pit heads and their respective engine houses. Little more than shells up here, with one engine house being locked up pretty tight, and the other buildings being little more than ruins.
I probably should have tried to get a few more photos, but there wasn't all that much to look at and we were running short on time.
We then proceeded to the bottom, past where the road has collapsed into the culvert below. Believe that happened as a result of the river undercutting the culvert retaining wall after storms Clara and Dennis in 2020.
We encountered the local couple again at this point, and we saw a chamber with yet more heras fencing blocking access, so we all decided to venture inside and see what was what... Which in hindsight was a stupid idea. Reeked of rotten eggs outside, didn't consider that it was more than likely hydrogen sulphide at the time! Rather photogenic inside, but definitely not worth the risk!
The walkways above looked pretty rotten, combined with the gas, we scarpered pretty sharpish.
May have missed out in doing so... Going from a previous report by @Speed on here... Report - - Crumlin Navigation Colliery - South Wales - May 2010 | Industrial Sites
I believe we were in the airways from the Fan House. It was certainly a lot drier inside, I'm wondering if the fans are still in situ... Might have to revisit...
The site from the hillside above -
The Chimney (pity I didn't own a drone at this point)
Wouldn't normally photograph dumped rubbish, but those Gatwick airport trolleys are a very long way from home
Thanks for looking!
I don't know if the heritage group is still active or not, got the impression from their website that they were winding down their efforts and leaving management of the site to the landowners as of December 21. Sounds like a training company (ARC Training) were supposed to be making use of the entire site for plant training going forward, but there was an event of some sort in June, so I'm really not too sure what's going on.
Anyways, to the interesting part...The History -
The Navigation Colliery at Crumlin utilised two 20ft diameter shafts with a depth of 466 yards, with work sinking them beginning in 1907. Work was completed in 1910, with the shafts reaching the Black Vein (Nine Feet) seam. The North (downcast) shaft was the main winding shaft, using single deck cages with 2 trams, allowing a maximum winding capacity of 700 tons per shift. Blue Pennant stone was used to line the shafts, which was unusual as it was very expensive. This cost paid off however, as virtually no repairs were needed over the life of the mine.
In 1920, work was undertaken to extend the No.2 pit a further 70 yards to the Meadow Vein. The Black and Meadow Veins were the mainstay seams of the colliery, being worked until all the viable coal (Black Vein)was pretty much exhausted in 1958. There were numerous other seams available, with a 1950 NCB report estimating a combined 8,390,000 tons in coal reserves. A subsequent report in February 1958 found that much of the coal in these seams was unworkable, or of very poor quality, leaving only the Meadow Vein, which itself was becoming more difficult to win Coal from.
The Fan House made use of two Walker Bros horizontal twin tandem triple expansion steam engines, one of which is preserved at the National Museum of Wales. In 1950, the ventilation fans were moving 300,000 cubic feet of air per minute.
The Bath House was opened in February 1933 at a cost of £18,000, and had capacity for 800 men. It had 140 cubicles, locker rooms, bottle filling facilities, baths attendants, a boot cleaning and greasing room, and a first aid room. It's in a sorry state today.
The colliery had it's fair share of issues over it's life. There was a fatal accident in October 1910 when a staging collapsed, throwing 20 men into water at the bottom of the shaft. John Stone, from Newport, unfortunately drowned. There was a fatal roof collapse in the Meadow Vein in July 1929. 2 men were injured, and Joseph Walters, from Crumlin unfortunately died. In 1932, it was found that the nearby Oakdale Colliery had been poaching coal reserves belonging to the Navigation Colliery. This was stopped and compensation paid, resulting in 400 men losing their jobs at Oakdale.
There was also issues with water ingress, with a flood reported in 1917 and another more severe flood in June 1938, in which the entire mine was flooded, with water reaching halfway up the shafts. This was a result of workers in the Black Vein Straight North District hitting an underground lake. Emergency pumping took place to clear the mine, and the floor was raised by 39 metres to create a sump and install extra pumping equipment. A section of mine was also dammed off, which remained in place for the remainder of the mines life. The average amount of water pumped up from the mine each day was a staggering 412,000 gallons.
The mine unfortunately didn't survive the closure program of the 1960s, closing in 1967. The shafts were infilled with washery tailings in 1970, so very little remains of them. The remaining colliery buildings were all listed, as they are deemed to be of outstanding architectural significance.
The Explore -
Access is easy enough, with most buildings being accessible. Started at the rear of the site after scrambling down the hill, with the Bath House being the first building we hit. There was some heras fencing blocking the way in, wasn't doing a good job though, it doubled as a door...
A lot of natural decay in here, the building itself is in poor condition, it's a world apart from the one at Penallta!
The obligatory chair was located in here, bit battered though...
I've always found the way sockets and switches rust away rather interesting... Strange
Had a bit of a scare when we made our exit, bumped into a couple of people, but they were a local couple having a mooch like us, so all was well.
We then worked our way upwards towards the pit heads and their respective engine houses. Little more than shells up here, with one engine house being locked up pretty tight, and the other buildings being little more than ruins.
We then proceeded to the bottom, past where the road has collapsed into the culvert below. Believe that happened as a result of the river undercutting the culvert retaining wall after storms Clara and Dennis in 2020.
We encountered the local couple again at this point, and we saw a chamber with yet more heras fencing blocking access, so we all decided to venture inside and see what was what... Which in hindsight was a stupid idea. Reeked of rotten eggs outside, didn't consider that it was more than likely hydrogen sulphide at the time! Rather photogenic inside, but definitely not worth the risk!
The walkways above looked pretty rotten, combined with the gas, we scarpered pretty sharpish.
May have missed out in doing so... Going from a previous report by @Speed on here... Report - - Crumlin Navigation Colliery - South Wales - May 2010 | Industrial Sites
I believe we were in the airways from the Fan House. It was certainly a lot drier inside, I'm wondering if the fans are still in situ... Might have to revisit...
The site from the hillside above -
The Chimney (pity I didn't own a drone at this point)
Wouldn't normally photograph dumped rubbish, but those Gatwick airport trolleys are a very long way from home
Thanks for looking!
