History of the Gwent Collieries

Rose Heyworth Colliery. Rose Heyworth Colliery – The Pithead Bank and north cage on the upper deck. Also seen are the banksman’s controls (right) and on the ground is the compressed air loading ram, this ram pushed the loaded drams onto the cage, the dram would be kept secure on the cage by the Scotches on the floor of the …

Rose Heyworth Colliery. Rose Heyworth Colliery – The Creeper at the Pithead Bank. The creeper was used to take the loaded drams of supplies to the upper deck of the bank to load onto the cage. The two different types of drams seen in the image are a flat-bed bogie for carrying machinery and the open ended dram with no …

Rose Heyworth Colliery. Rose Heyworth Colliery – The Headgear Framework. This headgear frame is commonly known as lattice framework. Originally the headgear at Rose Heyworth was made of wood, with iron wheels and a flat winding rope. The old wooden frame was replaced in the early 1900’s with the iron lattice work frame.

Rose Heyworth Colliery. Rose Heyworth Colliery – The Headgear Framework, the photograph was taken from the back of the colliery.

Rose Heyworth Colliery. Rose Heyworth Colliery – The view from the back of the colliery looking south-east.  The houses of the Arael View estate can be seen top and bottom.

Rose Heyworth Colliery. Rose Heyworth Colliery – The Headgear Framework. The Bournville Slips on Mynydd James can be seen in the background. The white plastic suction shuttle tubes can be seen attached to the back stay and headgear.

Rose Heyworth Colliery. Rose Heyworth Colliery – The Timber Yard and Sawyers Cabin, looking north-west, the new colliery waste tip can be seen in the distance. This tip was established in the 1940’s-50’s when the previous two tips, one opposite the colliery and the other at the top end of the Abertillery Park extension reached their limit. The waste was …

Rose Heyworth Colliery. Rose Heyworth Colliery – The Railway Sidings, looking north. The lower end of Bournville village can be seen in the distance.

Rose Heyworth Colliery. Rose Heyworth Colliery – The Coal Preparation Plant and the Bradford Breaker building (left). The Bradford Breaker was housed in the tall building seen in the image, it was a sort of tumbler with holes, the coal and small waste would drop though the holes and the tumbler would retain the large boulders which were ejected from …

Rose Heyworth Colliery. Rose Heyworth Colliery – The Coal Preparation Plant. The modern looking green silo (far right) was the cement bunker for mixing cement into the waste to solidify the mixture before going up the tip. This was a precaution in consequence to the Aberfan Disaster in October 1966.