11862

 

II  

Designated  

04/02/1991  

01/03/2004  

Cefn Coed Colliery Pump House  

 

Neath Port Talbot  

Crynant  

Neath  

Crynant  

278543  

203283  

 

Located at the Cefn Coed Colliery Museum in the Dulais Valley, on the A4109 two miles north of Aberdulais. The pump house is immediately adjacent to the boilerhouse at the centre of the Museum site.  

Industrial  

 

Cefn Coed Colliery was sunk in 1926-7 at that time being the deepest anthracite mine in the world with two shafts over 732m deep. The colliery began production of high-quality anthracite in 1930, employed over 900 men in 1945 and closed in 1968. The site remained in use in association with the Blaenant Drift Mine in the valley floor to the south, which was driven in the 1960s and closed in 1990. The Cefn Coed Colliery Museum was established in 1978 and has within its area at the side of the site several important monuments, including the colliery’s original steam boilerhouse, chimney, compressor house, electrical generating house, two headframes and the winding house of No 2 shaft with the original steam winding engines. The pump house contained steam-operated pumps to supply water to the boilers.  

Single-storey building, sunk into the ground, gabled at front and back and with five metal-framed windows down its S side. The gable ends each have double doors and a circular opening in the gable itself. Constructed of brick with concrete lintels, as in other of the original colliery buildings on the site, and an asbestos roof.  

Two small steam-driven pumps made by Weir survive inside the building. These were installed in c.1930, but are said to have been re-used from a First World War battleship. The E end of the building is used as a store.  

Listed for group value with this exceptionally complete colliery complex.