The Last Deep Mine in South Wales
Tower Colliery was the oldest continuously operated deep coal mine in Britain. Located on the northern fringe of South Wales coal field the seams were so close to the surface that they could be drift mined from the surface and the first drift at tower was driven in 1864, the mine was named after the nearby folly Crawshay's Tower.
In 1941 tower became a deep mine when a 160m shaft was driven down to the workings, from its completion in 1943 right up until the mines last shift it was used as the return up cast airway and for transporting men to the face more quickly. The colliery surface buildings including the Winding house, offices, fan house, pit head and bath house are perhaps the only surviving war time colliery buildings and are necessarily utilitarian.
The Headgear
Tower reached its final form in 1958 when the tower No3 drift was driven into the No4 workings to become the main intake airway and for conveying coal to the surface to be treated in a new Coal Preparation Plant.
The Pit Bank
Tower's was a rather unremarkable mine for most of the 20th centaury it survived the post miners strike closures of 1985 by merging with Maerdy Colliery in the Rhondda. An underground link was driven between the two and Maerdy's coal was brought to the surface at Tower from 1986 onwards. This arrangement lasted only 4 years, As British Coal was prepared for privatisation, Every remaining pit in Wales including Tower-Maerdy were declared uneconomic and British coal announced their intention to close them all Tower's turn came on the 22nd of April 1994.
The Winding House
The Colliery’s NUM Branch Secretary Tyrone O'Sullivan organised 239 miners in to the TEBO (Tower Employees Buy-Out), with each pledging £8,000 from their redundancy payments to buy their colliery. Against stiff opposition form the government a price of £2million was eventually agreed and the miners marched back to the pit on January 2, 1995.
The Pit Head Baths
By the time of the buyout the only seam worked at Tower was the Seven Feet/Five Feet, a combined seam of several leaves which offered 1.3m of anthracite in a mined section of 1.65m. The seams produced good quality coking coal washed on site then shipped to the PowerStation at Aberthaw. The workers were successful in operating the mine at a profit but as the seam was exhausted all other alternatives for extending the mines life seemed uneconomic. Work switched to the reserves of coal left on the north of the edge of the working to protect the shaft a move which spelled the end of tower as a workable deep mine. the last shift was worked on 18 January, 2008 and the official closure of the colliery occurred on 25 January.
No man riding anymore.
The colliery still sits awaing redevlopment but the headgear and winding house sould survive at the very least.