Windsor Colliery
Encyclopedia
Windsor Colliery was a coal mine in the village of Abertridwr, Caerphilly.

Opened in 1895, it amalgamated with the Nantgarw Colliery
Nantgarw Colliery
Nantgarw Colliery was a coal mine located in the village on Nantgarw, Mid Glamorgan located just north of Cardiff.Opened in 1910, it closed in 1986. The site is now redeveloped as the industrial estate Parc Nantgarw.-Development:...

 in 1974, and closed in 1986. Ty'n y Parc (Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

 for "house on the park") housing estate
Housing estate
A housing estate is a group of buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Accordingly, a housing estate is usually built by a single contractor, with only a few styles of house or building design, so they tend to be uniform in appearance...

 now occupies the site.

Development

The sinking of two shafts of the Windsor Colliery commenced in 1895 by the Windsor Colliery Co. Ltd, to a depth of around 2,018 feet. The first coal was raised in 1902, with the workings connected underground to the Universal Colliery
Universal Colliery
Universal Colliery was a coal mine located in the town of Senghenydd in the Aber Valley, roughly four miles north-west of the town of Caerphilly...

 in Senghenydd
Senghenydd
Senghenydd is a town in the Aber Valley, roughly four miles north-west of the town of Caerphilly and is within the county borough of Caerphilly, Wales. It is traditionally within the county of Glamorgan...

 for ventilation
Ventilation (architecture)
Ventilating is the process of "changing" or replacing air in any space to provide high indoor air quality...

 purposes. The mine was serviced by the Senghenydd branch line
Branch line
A branch line is a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line...

 of the Rhymney Railway
Rhymney Railway
The Rhymney Railway was virtually a single stretch of main line, some fifty miles in length, by which the Rhymney Valley was connected to the docks at Cardiff in the county of Glamorgan, South Wales.-History:...

.

Accident

On June 1, 1902, a platform collapsed in the mine, tipping nine men into 25 feet of water, which had gathered in the sump
Sump
A sump is a low space that collects any often-undesirable liquids such as water or chemicals. A sump can also be an infiltration basin used to manage surface runoff water and recharge underground aquifers....

. Three managed to escape drowning
Drowning
Drowning is death from asphyxia due to suffocation caused by water entering the lungs and preventing the absorption of oxygen leading to cerebral hypoxia....

 by clinging onto floating debris, but the other six lost their lives.

Operations

The colliery suffered from the 1920s economic downturn, as manpower slipped from 2,550 men in 1925 (the same year as maximum output of 2,550 tons of coal) to 860 ten years later. As a result, the colliery was taken over in the early 1930s by Powell Duffryn
Powell Duffryn
PD Ports is a Middlesbrough-headquartered British ports operator.Formerly known as Powell Duffryn, it dug its first coal mine in South Wales in 1840, and later expanded into various sorts of manufacturing...

 Steam Coal Company. Ownership passed to the National Coal Board
National Coal Board
The National Coal Board was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the mines on "vesting day", 1 January 1947...

 in 1946.

During 1976, it became linked underground to the Nantgarw Colliery
Nantgarw Colliery
Nantgarw Colliery was a coal mine located in the village on Nantgarw, Mid Glamorgan located just north of Cardiff.Opened in 1910, it closed in 1986. The site is now redeveloped as the industrial estate Parc Nantgarw.-Development:...

, and both collieries were worked as one unit, with coal winding and processing via Nantgarw. The majority of the Windsor work force transferred to Nantgarw on the last shift before the miners' summer holidays in 1976, but coal was still being raised in Windsor until the Christmas holiday. Production was later concentrated at Nantgarw, with Windsor kept open for ventilation, methane
Methane
Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...

extraction and an emergency way out.
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