A miner puts on his hard hat and light in the lamp room of Tower Colliery deep coal mine at Hirwaun South Wales
History Of Tower Colliery The first drift mine named Tower was started in 1864 on Hirwaun common, named after the nearby Crawshay Tower, a folly built in 1848 The present shaft was sunk in 1941 and is 160m deep it is used as the main return ventilation shaft and for the transport of men Tower No3 new drift was driven in 1958 to meet the No4 colliery workings and is used as the main intake airway, conveying coal to the surface and transporting materials into the mine working areas, British Coal closed Tower Colliery on 22nd April 1994 on the grounds that it would be uneconomic to continue production, A buyout group was formed from the workforce, Tower Employee BuyOut TEBO and successfully bid for the ownership of the Colliery, On January 3rd 1995 the Colliery reopened under the ownership of the workforce buy out company, Goitre Tower Anthracite, By December 1995 the company had returned first year pretax profits exceeding four million pounds It is the last deep mine in Wales and one of a handfull left in the UK. The mine closed 25th January 2008.
Size: 5400px × 3600px
Location: Tower Colliery, Hirwaun, South Wales, UK, EU
Photo credit: © Jeff Morgan 02 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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