Pont-y-Yard Pont-y-Yard

Pont-y-Yard Bridge, adjacent to the A 4067 just South of Abercrave, was one of the earliest stone bridges to span the River Tawe. It was built by Daniel Harpur, a local industrialist who came originally from Tamworth in Staffordshire. The bridge was intended as an aqueduct, to link the adjacent Lefel Fawr Colliery to the Swansea Canal at Hen-Neuadd dock, (now the site of Longs Coaches)

This extension to the canal was never completed however, because of the gradient and the hardness of the local rock. Instead a horse-drawn tramway was built to take the coal to the canal and to the Abercrave Ironworks. The cottage by the bridge was occupied by the colliery manager.

Just beyond the cottage you can see the barred entrance to the Lefel Fawr Mine which Daniel Harpur opened around 1801 . Notice the red-brown colour of the stream that flows from the entrance. This is due to iron which is often associated with coal seams. The colliery level was tunnelled for over a mile into the hillside by William Watkins a local engineer. He did not use explosives, and preferred to shatter the rock by harnessing the expansion produced when lime was slaked with water.

The yard itself, which gave the bridge its name (bridge of the yard), was an area between the old Swansea Valley Canal feeder and the river Tawe. The main A 4067 road now runs across it. It was originally used to store and load coal from the Lefel Fawr mine. Around the year 1910 it was the site of a billiard hall, dance hall and newsagents shop, all operated by a Mrs Walters of Caehopkin. It was also used by travelling circuses and fairs.

In 1794 Daniel Harpur became one of the proprietors of the Swansea Canal, and in 1801 he moved into the area, building Abercrave Mansion (now Abercrave House) near the old Abercrave Farm. It was Harpur who anglicised the name ‘Abercraf’ to ‘Abercrave’ (the name Abercraf comes from the confluence of the Craf stream with the river Tawe, with ‘Craf ‘ being an old Welsh word for wild garlic). As well as developing the Lefel Fawr Colliery and the Abercrave Iron works he became a director of the British Iron and Steel Company.

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The Collieries of Abercrave

Abercrave Colliery, Year-1896 Mynydd-y-Drum (The Drum Mountain) which overlooks Abercrave and Ystradgynlais from the East has been extensively mined. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Daniel Harpur had opened the "Lefel Fawr" mine and built Pont-y-Yard

Owner Abercrave Collieries Co bridge over the river Tawe to transport coal, from a low lying coal seam, to the Swansea Valley Canal. Type of Mine Slant (Drift) Manager W.W.Morgan Later in the century the Blackburn family from Nant-y-Glo near Merthyr Tydfil were quarrying sand stone higher up on the Type of Product Anthracite and Coal Drum Mountain overlooking Abercrave (just above what became the route of the subsequent railway line) when they found a Workers Employed 154 below ground, 18 above ground seam of anthracite up to 18 feet in thickness.

Gwaunclawdd Colliery, Year 1908 This lead to the opening of four collieries overlooking Abercrave. They were established in the following order, heading Northwards, and were named "Gwaun-y-clawdd", "International (Candy) ", "Abercrave" and "Nicky Nack" colliery. All were all strung out along the Western side of Mynydd-y-Drum, just below the Neath and Brecon Railway line. Owner Abercrave Collieries Co Type of Mine Slant (Drift) Manager Eli Davies Every colliery had to have a "return" or alternative way out, and the old Lefel Fawr air shaft near Yard Bridge was used as the Type of Product Anthracite and Coal "return" for the International (Candy) Colliery, as well as for ventilation. The original Gwaun-y-clawdd coal shaft just above the Workers Employed 78 below ground, 23 above ground railway line was later used as the "return" for what became the main Gwaun-y-clawdd colliery.

The 1908 inspection of the International The Morgan Family who had leased the stone quarry to the Blackburns now formed their own company, Abercrave Collieries Colliery, adjacent to Co, to run Abercrave and Gwaun-y-clawdd Collieries. They built most of the houses in the village of Caehopkin to Abercrave Colliery, recorded it as belonging accommodate the workers. to the International Anthracite Co, but being in receivership. Surveys carried out by Her Majesty's Inspectors of Mines) around the beginning of the twentieth century recorded the information shown on the left. International (Candy) Colliery, Year 1908 Abercrave Colliery had two entrances (drifts), exploiting different coal measures and different seams. One drift was known as the "Eighteen Foot" and the other as the "Lower Measures". Eighteen Foot referred to the maximum thickness of the seam Owner International Anthracite Co which reached 18ft (5.5 metres) in a few places. Ltd Type of Mine Slant (Drift) The seam known as the Lower Measures varied in thickness from four foot ( 1.3 metres) down to six inches ( 150 centimetres) Manager D.T. Alexander, and the miners often had to work lying on their side in narrow tunnels to extract the coal from this seam. The methods of receiver and manager. Type of Product Anthracite and Coal working changed over the years as mechanisation was introduced. Workers Employed 201 below ground, 53 above ground Originally the miners had worked in "stalls" and dug the coal with picks and shovels. They were paid according to the tonnage they produced and the coal and spoil (waste) was removed by horse drawn wagons (drams).

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Winches were often used to pull the drams up the steeper inclines out of the mine, using ropes or steel cables, and this system was known as a "haulage".

When conveyors were introduced the method of calculating payment changed, with each miner being allocated a six yard (5.5 metre) long "stint" of the coal face to mine. Every man negotiated a price per yard with "the fireman" and the price depended on the height of the seam at that location. The men worked a 24 hour three shift system, but coal was only extracted on the day shifts.

Miners at The International, "Candy" Colliery in 1912

The night shift "cut" the coal and carried out the operations necessary to "advance" the face ready for the next day shift. Cutting involved the use of a 4.5 foot ( 1.3 metre") diameter circular saw with large hardened steel teeth. This pulled itself along a tethered steel cable and made a 2 foot ( 0.6 metre) deep cut along the bottom of the coal seam, parallel to the floor of the gallery. The miners on the following day shifts then used pneumatic drills, picks and shovels to extract all the coal above the cut.

The drifts at all three collieries headed Eastwards into the mountain, towards Seven Sisters and the Eighteen Foot Seam was very wet, as the land above it was marshy. The last day at Abercrave Colliery in March 1967.

Around the year 1964 a 100 foot ( 31 metre) thick section of the roof fell into one of the galleries at Abercrave Colliery and it was fortunate that no-one was injured or killed. It took around five months to clear the vast amount of fallen material and those who were doing the work could look up and see the sky above.

Gwaunclawdd Colliery closed in the mid 1930s and the International Colliery closed in the early 1950s. Abercrave Colliery continued in production until March 1967 when four hundred and fifty men lost their jobs. Some were offered jobs in other pits such as Ynyscedwyn Colliery in Ystradgynlais but unfortunately this also closed, exactly one year later.

There were many different seams of coal under Mynydd-y-Drum, all of which were classed as Anthracite. Anthracite is ancient vegetation which has been

2 reduced to almost pure carbon by the action of time and pressure.Page 3

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Abercrave Colliery

With anthracite, most of the original volatile matter has gone, and so when burned it remains solid, unlike "soft coals" which soften and become tar-like. Anthracite varies considerably in its hardness and other qualities according to where it occurs. The upper measures (such as the eighteen Foot seam) are less hard and shatter easily. They tend to create very dusty working conditions for the miners. The lower measures are much older, more deeply buried, highly compressed and harder to shatter, but they break cleanly producing little dust and leaving the hands clean after handling. The highest quality anthracite came from the lower measures, but these thinner, harder, seams cost more to mine. The best quality anthracite mined from the lower measures was called "Blue Diamond" as it shone when broken, and the miners would fashion sculptures and ornaments from it.

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file:///C|/websites/craig-y-nos/walks/7ystradgynlais/history1print.htm (3 of 3)29/01/2008 16:10:11 The Neath and Brecon Railway The Neath and Brecon Railway

The construction of the Neath and Brecon Railway was a vital cog in the development of the South Wales coal industry. It linked many small collieries in the Neath and Swansea valleys to large industrial complexes and also provided a regular passenger service to Brecon which linked onward to Hereford ,Worcester and the West Midlands. The first patented Fairlie Locomotive ran on the Neath and Brecon Railway.

The Brecon Train Original Company Seal

The two pictures of trains on the left show later Fairlie "singles". One of the A Restored Fairlie Locomotive original "double" boiler locomotives is shown above. Robert Francis Fairlie was a Scotsman, born in 1831, trained at Crewe and Swindon, Robert Fairlie joined first the Londonderry & Coleraine Railway, and then the Bombay, Baroda & Central India Railway. In the early 1860s he set himself up in London as a consultant and in 1864 filed his patent for what would later be known as the Fairlie locomotive. This was an articulated locomotive intended mainly for hauling heavy loads on twisting narrow-gauge railways.

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The first unit was built in 1865 for the Neath & Brecon Railway and had two pivoting power bogies and two boilers back-to-back (with smoke box and chimney at each end of the locomotive, a single firebox at the centre, around which was built the cab). This was the typical Fairlie 'double-ender', although single-boiler and other variants later appeared. While the system provided a flexible coupled wheelbase, and freedom to include a large well- ventilated firebox, the flexible joints of the steam pipes tended to leak and the locomotives could only be safely used at low speeds because of overhang and other stability problems.

The Neath and Brecon Railway had 56 miles of track with 3 branch lines. At the turn of the 20th century there were eight steam trains a day passing through Penwyllt station: one each from Brecon and Neath crossing at 9.20am, and two more at 12.15pm. At 5.00pm there was a train to Brecon and at 7.00pm one to Neath. There were also two freight trains each day.

The following is a brief history of the main events:

● 1862:Act of Parliament granted the ‘Dulais Valley Mineral Railway Co’ permission to construct a railway from Neath into the nearby valley. This was soon incorporated into the ‘Neath and Brecon Railway’, extending the route to Brecon via Coelbren with another branch to Swansea.

● 1864: Neath to Onllwyn section opened.

● 1869: Neath to Brecon line completed.

● 1873: Swansea to Coelbren Junction track opened.

● 1876: Midland Railway takes control of Swansea to Coelbren line.

● 1877: Midland Railway takes over rest of the network, allowing Neath and Brecon Co 30% of the revenue from the trains not running up the Swansea Valley.

● 1922: Great Western Railway absorbs the Neath and Brecon, and London Midland and Scottish Railway continues to run the Swansea to Brecon line.

● 1931: Great Western Railway takes over the whole system.

● 1948: Railways Nationalised. Page 6 ● 1962: Closed to passengers by Lord Beeching, but freight traffic from Penwyllt continued for about another 15 years.

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Iron has been made in the in the vicinity of Ystradgynlais since at least the early 17th century. For hundreds of years wood charcoal had been used for smelting iron, but wood charcoal was expensive and always in short supply and in 1709 Abraham Darby, in Ironbridge, Shropshire, had begun to use coke as a replacement. This improved the process and allowed larger items with thinner walls to be cast, thus expanding the use of the technology whilst also reducing the cost.

Foundry coke, as it became known, was made by blending soft bituminous coal with anthracite and then heating it in an oven in an absence of air to drive off the volatile matter. Although soft coal and anthracite were available in quantity they usually occurred in different locations and had to be transported. The Swansea Valley was rich in anthracite, but it had no soft bituminous coal, and the construction of the Swansea Canal in 1794 was vital for transporting supplies of coal and ore to the valley's burgeoning iron industries. The coking process itself was also a slow and costly operation which produced lots of pollution.

In 1820 a David Thomas began his own experiments at the Ynysgedwen* Ironworks in Ystradgynlais, using only local anthracite, with a view to reducing or eliminating the need for coke. He modified a Cupola Furnace fitted for Hot Blast (as patented later by Neilson in 1828).

George Crane, the owner of the ironworks, recognised the significance of this process and on 5th February 1837 the first furnace to be successfully fuelled by anthracite was "blown-in".

This led to an ironworks building-boom with 36 furnaces being constructed in and around the South Wales anthracite belt in the following years. Ystradgynlais itself grew from a population of 993 in 1801 to 3758 in 1851.

David Thomas was born in the Swansea Valley in 1791. When he was 17 he went to work at Neath Abbey Ironworks, the most advanced producer of steam engines and associated heavy machinery in South Wales.

By 1817 he was travelling throughout England and Wales erecting pumping engines and it was at that time he was appointed Superintendent of the Ynysgedwyn Ironworks.

In 1839 he received an offer from the United States and emigrated there to build an anthracite fuelled blast furnace in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. Most accessible reserves of coal in the USA were anthracite and Page 8 David Thomas had the know-how to utilise this resource in the production of iron.

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In 1854 he founded the Thomas Iron Company, which became the largest producer of anthracite pig-iron in the United States and he is remembered as David "Papa" Thomas, the father of the American iron industry.

By 1860 Ynysgedwyn Ironworks was employing 1000 men and operating seven furnaces, but by 1872 it was closed, outdated by new plant and technology. The site was then used as an iron foundry and later by The Welsh Tinplate Company. It was finally abandoned in 1947.

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Swansea Valley Canal

The Swansea Canal project commenced when the Duke of Beaufort cut the first turf at Brewery Bank Swansea in 1792. It was funded by an investment of £56,000 and the canal ultimately ran between Swansea and the Hen-Neuadd basin in Abercrave, a total distance, excluding privately owned branches, of 26.2km (16.25miles). It was built to carry narrow boats 19.5m long, 2.3m wide and 0.9m deep, which could carry 22 tons of cargo. It had 36 locks that raised the water-level 118 metres.

Aqueducts had to be constructed to cross five major rivers, including the famous three arched aqueduct over the Twrch at Ystalyfera. This aqueduct was the first to use hydrostatic cement and was built on a spur of dry land named Ynysdraw. The river Twrch was then diverted to flow under it.

The canal opened to traffic in 1800 and a variety of industries grew up along its path and used it as an economical means of bulk transport. These included coal, iron, copper, brewing, tinplate, chemicals, steel, pottery, lime and stone quarries, of which the most significant were the huge ironworks at Ynyscedwyn and Ystalyfera. There was also a large trade in Alder-wood blanks for clog making.

In 1804 it was recorded that 52,235 tons of coal was transported down the canal, which represented 2,487 boat journeys, and by 1888 this had risen to 385,309 tons or 18,384 journeys.

In 1872 the Great Western Railway Company purchased the canal and in 1947 ports and inland waterways were nationalised. The British Waterways Board took over the running of canals in 1963.

Aqueduct over the river Twrch at Ystalyfera

The route for the canal had originally been surveyed by a man named Shaxby (pronounced Sheasby) who had strong connections with Daniel Harpur the iron and mining entrepreneur in Abercrave.

Edward Martin another coal producer and agent for the Duke of Beaufort, was the consulting engineer responsible for Swansea North Dock and the nearby Neath Tennant Canal. He constructed a watermill to use the copious waste water from the Swansea Valley Canal canal and continued as consulting engineer until his death in 1818.

Old canal boat at Ystalyfera

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From the 1890’s to the 1920’s trade steadily declined and in 1928 the lower section of the canal was abandoned. Between 1959 and 1981 more than ten miles of the canal, North of Swansea, was filled-in to make way for new roads and housing.

In 1981 the Swansea Canal Society was set-up to preserve and restore what was left of the canal and, with the help of local councils and the British Waterways Board, it has had some success,

There are substantial stretches of the old towpath between Abercrave and Pontardawe which can be walked, including the section between Ynysmeudwy and Pontardawe, where the canal is still navigable.

Near Pontardawe

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The Ironworks situated close to the Hen-Neuadd canal dock in Abercrave was built by Daniel Harpur in about 1824. The remains are located at the bottom of the hillside, close to the north east side of the Rheolau Arms public house, and are on private land. The hillside location was chosen to enable raw materials to be tipped into the top of the 15ft ( 4.6 meter) diameter furnace from horse drawn carts.

It is noteworthy in being the first Ironworks built expressly to use anthracite coal, and to do this it required a "blast" of air. This was initially provided by two pistons pushing air through valves into a steel reservoir box, and then through cast iron pipes into the furnace. The driving force came from a 10.6 meter water wheel, but the system only produced around half a bar (7 PSI) of air pressure and was not particularly successful.

The water was provided by diverting the feeder of the Swansea Canal. Anthracite coal would have been supplied by the Lefel Fawr Colliery at Pont-y-Yard, which was also owned by Daniel Harpur. Limestone, used to remove impurities from the iron, came from the Cribarth mountain, where Harpur also had extensive interests.

The Abercrave Ironworks first closed in 1829, but when the problems associated with using local anthracite coal had been solved at the Ynyscedwyn Ironworks by David Thomas, it re- opened in 1855. There does seem to have been close co-operation with George Crane, the owner of the Ynyscedwyn works as the Abercrave site was at one time known as: ‘Gwaith y Cran’ or Crane’s works. The Abercrave Ironworks finally closed in 1861.

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