Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

can still be seen for the most part. Development of the new colliery then seems to have come to a halt for some reason, since it was not until eighteen months later that any further progress is recorded. On 7th December 1901 a ceremony was held to mark the beginning of sinking the new colliery in the woods of Penllergaer behind Tirdwncyn Farm. There were to be two shafts, an upcast and a downcast, and the first sods were cut by Captain Charles Llewelyn, the son of Sir John Dillwyn-Llewelyn, and by Sir John's youngest daughter, Gladys. The two pits were named Charles Pit and Gladys Pit in their honour. They were to be 15 ft. in diameter and to go down to a depth of about 300 or 350 yards. The coal that was to be worked from the colliery was about the only substantial reserve left in the Swansea area and slotted between the Vivians' Mynydd Newydd taking and the Glasbrooks' Garngoch. It was estimated that there were 20 million tons waiting to be extracted. Jenkins had taken an initial lease of 600 acres from Sir John Dillwyn-Llewelyn, which was later to be extended to 1050 acres in 1909 and again to 1450 in 1912, and he had invested about £ 40,000 in the undertaking. The annual rent was to be £ 3,000, with an additional royalty of 8d, per ton on coal and 3d. per ton on fireclay. The choice of site appears to have been imposed on him by Dillwyn-Llewelyn who wanted the pit to be in the Tirdwncyn basin so that the pithead gear was not visible from Penllergaer House. Jenkins' original idea had been to sink at Bryntywod, about half a mile to the north-east. In fact altogether the provisions of the lease were regarded as being very strict. For the next few years steady, if unspectacular, progress was made. Work was concentrated on the Gladys Pit at first and on 6th September 1903 the 5 ft. seam was struck, after what was described as a very difficult boring, at about 450 ft. below the surface. In June 1904 the 5 ft. seam was struck in the Charles Pit, and sinking continued in both shafts towards the 5 ft. seam which was reached in September 1905 in the Charles Pit, at a depth of 865 ft., but not until January 1908 in the Gladys Pit. Ultimately the Gladys Pit was to be 930 ft. deep and the Charles 921 ft. These depths correspond fairly closely to the 300-350 yards (900-1050 ft.) which was anticipated when sinking began. Once the first productive seam, the 5 ft., had been reached in the Gladys Pit in September 1903, arrangements were embarked upon for extracting the coal on a commercial basis. The special rules governing the working of the pit were signed on 10th May 1904, and at about the same time a pair of horizontal winding engines was ordered from the Kilmarnock engineering firm of Andrew Barclay. Also, in the latter part of 1903, the name of the company was changed from the Cefn Gyfelach Colliery Company to the Tirdonkin Collieries Company (TCC) to reflect the shift in the relative importance of the two collieries now that Tirdonkin was beginning to yield.