6556

 

II  

Designated  

31/07/1991  

01/09/1997  

Kilgetty Colliery Engine House  

 

Pembrokeshire  

Amroth  

Tenby  

Stepaside  

213839  

207775  

 

In the yard of Stepaside Coachworks off Kilgetty Lane in Stepaside 15 m NE of the weighbridge office. It served the Engine Pit, which was about 12 m from the front wall of the engine house.  

Industrial  

 

Kilgetty Colliery consisted of several pits, the first documented of which was sunk in 1775. These were abandoned and re-opened on numerous occasions. A beam engine was bought from the Neath Abbey Iron Company for the colliery in c.1811, and further pits were sunk in the 1840s. During the 1850s the colliery prospered, providing coal for the Kilgetty (or Stepaside) Ironworks, but it declined in the 1860s. It last operated from 1937 to 1939 under the Kilgetty Anthracite Colliery Company, when over 250 men were employed. The engine house is first clearly marked on the 1906 25" O.S. map, but it is probably very much older. The building is an extremely rare example of a colliery winding engine house of a small and inexpensive type, although such buildings were formerly common. It is particularly rare in showing alteration and reconstruction for continued use, although this practice was typical. It is also one of very few remaining buildings representative of the important Pembrokeshire coal industry.  

The pit this house served was of 49 fathoms and was named 'Engine Pit'. The engine house is about 7 m by 5 m wide, standing on an irregular sandstone plinth built into the slope, with a superstructure of red brick and a gabled green-slate roof. The sandstone base of the structure belongs to an earlier engine house, possibly that for the Neath Abbey Iron Company engine, purchased in c.1811. The three square openings into the base at the front (to the NW) and one at the right side are typical of beam-engine houses of this period. An external stone staircase rises on the right side to the doorway. The upper and front part of the building has been altered in brickwork, in the late C19 or later, for the installation of a new winding engine. The brickwork is projected out in two narrow baffles to the front, carrying the roof beyond the façade to an overhanging boarded gable. Below this a planked wall rises from the original stone plinth, and contains a tall opening, with hinges on either side. The winding cables would have passed through this aperture. (This has been blocked in timber in its lower half and a small-paned steel window fitted above.) There are two more windows in the upper part, a C19 cast-iron window at the rear and a late C20 window towards the rear of the NE side.  

 

Listed as an extremely rare example of a colliery winding engine house of a small and inexpensive type, although such buildings were formerly common . It is particularly rare in showing alteration and reconstruction for continued use, although this practice was typical. It is also one of a very few buildings representative of the important Pembrokeshire coal industry.