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Abertillery New Mine – Rose Heyworth and Cwmtillery Collieries Shaft Depth Details
Both collieries, Rose Heyworth and Cwmtillery had always been connected since the Rose Heyworth Colliery was established and sunk in 1874-75. At that time Mr Joseph Wallace (Manager of Cwmtillery Colliery) and Mr William Adams (Mining Engineer of Cardiff) drove a connecting tunnel from Cwmtillery to the newly sunk Rose Heyworth Colliery for ventilation purposes.
In about 1959 a new coal preparation plant was constructed at Rose Heyworth and a drift was driven from below ground at Cwmtillery to the surface at Rose Heyworth for the latter colliery to handle all the coal and waste from both collieries. At this time the N.C.B renamed the both collieries Abertillery New Mine, with each colliery being called and officially known as a “Section” of the combine, i.e., Abertillery New Mine – Rose Heyworth Section and Abertillery New Mine – Cwmtillery Section.
The coal and shaft depth chart (as seen in the featured image above) is taken from an official N.C.B plan of both collieries from 1970’s. I was most recently informed that the information printed on the chart shows that the National Coal Board used 10,000′ feet datum below ordnance datum level as a measurement and all measurements above would be in the positive. One must have to take the lower figure from the higher to get a measurement.
In this instance (Rose Heyworth Colliery) the “shaft bottom level” at 9950.00 should be taken away from the “surface level” of 10806.06 = therefore the depth of the shaft being 856′ feet 6″ inches.
In this instance (Cwmtillery Colliery) the “pit bottom level” at 10122.60 should be taken away from the “surface level” of 10915.95 = therefore the depth of the shaft being 793′ feet 3 and a half” inches.
For many years there has been speculation about the depth of both collieries and this finding will hopefully clear it up.