Llandavel Colliery Cwm Valley

The Llandavel Colliery Cwm Valley.
The Llandavel Colliery was a coal level and was mentioned in a report from April 1865 and being owned by Mr John Russell.

The Village.
The workman’s cottages at Llandavel, Cwm were built about 1873.

The Monmouthshire & Cwm Collieries Co.
In 1880 the Llandavel Colliery was listed as being owned by the Monmouthshire & Cwm Collieries Co. The Monmouthshire & Cwm Collieries Company were Messrs John and Richard Stanfield and Mr David Nurse. 

In April 1882 Landavel Colliery along with the new Cwm Level was for sale on a reserve of £9,000. It was described as being 800 acres of red ash coal and the sale included siding accommodation on the Great Western Railway, plant and machinery, fifty-six coal wagons, ninety railway wagons, forty-six coke ovens, capable of producing forty-six tons of coke per day. Also for sale were the workman’s cottages and a farm on seventy-six acres.

Messrs James and Emanuel.
In 1884 the Llandavel Colliery was combined with the Arral Level and taken over by Messrs James and Emanuel with the manager being Mr Thomas F. Salt later owner of the Rhiw Colbren Coal Levels at Abertillery.

Mr Rees Emanuel.
Mr Rees Emanuel of Griffiths Town, Pontypool was originally from Carmarthen, he had been associated with coal mining from a young age and managed many anthracite collieries in the Carmarthen area before coming to Monmouthshire to manage the Varteg collieries under Messrs Partridge Jones & Co. Mr Emanuel had also been a partner in the Monmouthshire and Cwm Collieries Co with Messrs Richard and John Stanfield.

Mr Rees Emanuel also had interests in the Tirpentys Colliery and had shares in that company. He was a Welsh speaker and worked hard to keep the language alive in South East Wales.

Mr W. P. James.
In 1884 Mr W. P. James J.P. a native of Abersychan became chairman of the Monmouthshire Borough Council. Mr James later joined into a partnership with Mr Rees Emanuel and took over the Abersychan, Arral and Llandavel Collieries.

The Abertillery Boundary.
The Llandavel Colliery, farm and village, was under the control of the Abertillery Local Board as it fell within the Abertillery boundary.

Llandavel and the Marine Colliery.
The area known as Llandavel, upon which the Marine Colliery was sunk, was originally owned by the Abertillery Local Board. Though during the sinking of the Marine Colliery, the Ebbw Vale Board entered into hostile talks with the Abertillery Board on taking control of the land at Llandavel which was on its the southwestern boundary and a big rates income for Abertillery.

Mining Royalties.
The Marine Colliery was to be situated just inside the Abertillery boundary and once in full production was estimated to rise 10,000 tons of coal per week – There were two assessments on coal, one at 6d. per ton to the district under from which it was mined and another at 2d. per ton to the district in which it was banked (brought to the surface). The Ebbw Vale Company said they would mine coal entirely in the Ebbw Vale district which was estimated at an income for the Ebbw Vale Board of £13,000 a year and Abertillery have the assessment at the lower estimate of just £4,300. Abertillery would also lose a portion of the money they had previously borrowed for that area.

Cwm Brook.
If the new boundary was drawn, the Abertillery Board would also lose a plentiful supply of pure water from the Cwm Brook, this brook would become the new boundary and it would have to be shared, so the Abertillery Board would lose half of their supply which augmented Abertillery and also supplied the Aberbeeg area.

At this time the Abertillery Board was having problems with the sanitary conditions at the houses (owned by Mr John Stanfield) at Llandavel. They had extra expense on scavenging and rubbish collections from the area, also the responsibility of the upkeep and repairs to the roads in that district and along with the distance from Abertillery, all added to their problems.

The first report was drawn up in June 1890, after two years of arguing, the final report to which both sides were in agreement and also which put an end to hostilities was entered in 1892. The report mentioned that the Ebbw Vale Company would not build houses for the workers on the land at Landavel and would house the influx of miners at Ebbw Vale and Cwm and would supply a passenger train from Beaufort to the Marine Colliery for the workers use.

The Boundary Change.
In 1892 after a two-year boundary change battle, the Abertillery Local Board conceded the Llandavel area to the Ebbw Vale Local Board, the latter took control and gained the land at Llandavel. 

Messrs Stanfield, Stanfield and Nurse Dissolved.
In May 1900 the partnership of Stanfield, Stanfield and Nurse was dissolved.

The Death of Mr W. P. James.
Mr W. P. James sadly died in April 1904.

The 1906 Landslip.
In January 1906 a serious landslip occurred at lower Cwm, it completely demolished part of the Cwm Colliery and slid down to the Great Western Railway. A large number of men were needed to clear away the debris.

In 1918 the Llandavel Colliery was listed as being abandoned but was still employing forty men at that time.

Messrs W. A. Boulton & Co.
In 1923 it was in the ownership of Messrs W. A. Boulton & Co of 5 Canning Street, Cwm.

 

Points of Interest – This colliery and village is hard to find in documentation as it had so many different spelling variations of its name. – Llandaval, Llandavel, Llandafal, Llan-davel, Llan-dafell, Llan-y-davel , Llan-y-dafal and Llanydavel etc etc.

Earth Closets.
In the (main featured image above) there can be seen in the back gardens of the cottages, black boxes, these are earth closets, an early form of toilet pre-sewage system. A hole was dug in the garden and the box is placed over it, this can then be used as a toilet by all the family or household. When the hole is full it is covered over with soil, a new hole is dug, and the box moved to its new location over the newly dug hole. This went on and on throughout the year. As this practice was relatively unhealthy the councils urged residents to start using buckets and they employed scavengers’, workmen with sealed horse & carts to visit each home to convey the mess away, a short while later this practice was abandoned as the laying of sewage pipes and the sewage system was established.

Difference Between Colliery and Level.
A colliery is a place where one mines coal, this can be a deep mine with a shaft or a level with its tunnel driven into the side of the mountain from the surface. A deep mine cannot be called a level though a level can be called a colliery.