Navigation Colliery, Crumlin, South Wales

The Power House & Pumping House.

Continuing the posts about the February 2008 urban exploration meet-up in South Wales (see previous five posts for the other sites), it was the last explore of the weekend and, despite cold and fatigue, was another excellent place to see and take photos of.

The Power House & Pumping House.

 

 

The colliery was started in 1907 with the sinking of two shafts, and reached completion in 1911. In 1935, 86 men were employed on the surface and 358 men underground. The seams worked at that time were Meadow Vein, Black Vein, Elled, Big Vein and the Three-Quarter. Unfortunately, the Black Vein Straight North District hit an underground lake in 1937. This meant that the shafts were eventually half submerged, and the pit bottom had to be permanently raised by 39 metres. By the 1960's widespread pit closures also affected the Navigation Colliery, and its gates were finally closed in September 1967.

The Power House & Pumping House.

Considered to be of outstanding industrial architecture, the buildings are Grade II & Grade II* listed, comprising Power House & Pumping House, North & South Winding Engine Houses, Chimney, Fan Drift & Fan House, Lamp Room, Bath House, Workshop & Stores, Offices, Electrical Outbuilding and Powder Store. The Colliery was a model show-pit of the time with high quality buildings and state-of-the-art machinery; one of the first to be built in brick rather than the usual local stone with brick dressings
 
Everything was still lying dormant at the time of my visit but in more recent years the site has been maintained by a team of volunteers called 'The Friends of The Navigation', with the aim of restoring the site and buildings and bringing them back into use.

The Power House & Pumping House with North Winding Engine House to the left.

Me being me, I snuck off on my own and went along the other side of the power house, taking photos along the way. This is the only building on the ground level whilst the rest are situated on the terrace above a revetment wall let into the hillside. The revetment wall can be seen on the left of the photos above and below.

Grade II listed, the building is long, rectangular and single-storey, built with high quality engineering bricks in red & yellow, the latter making a grid pattern.

Now roofless, once of Welsh slate, the overhanging eaves are still extant. A range of 12 delightful long round-arched openings (two of which are doorways) comprising multipaned glass in metal frames. Three gables contain roundel windows.

And from the other side, below.

The power house, below, with the north winding engine house behind it on the terrace.

The North Winding Engine House standing on the revetment wall, below. A Grade II* small one-storey building, in the same style as the Power House.

On the north terrace.

Overlooking the power house (above), showing its lack of roof. The north terrace buildings (below) include the workshops & stores on the right with the north winding engine house on the left. The colliery chimney is Grade II* listed, as is the winding engine house; the workshops are Grade II.

The south terrace was blocked off by a fence (above left). I managed to take a photo through a gap (above right) showing the next building on the south terrace, which is the fan drift with the fan house behind that.

Workshops & Stores.

Built in the same style as most of the other buildings in high quality red and yellow engineering brick, with long round-arched openings now blocked halfway up, it's a long narrow building subdivided into stores and carpentry shops, smiths and fitters.  

Workshops & Stores.

I'm not sure where these photos fit in, below, but if memory serves me they were of a much smaller building, therefore possibly either the Electrical Outbuilding or the Powder Store.

And some graffiti. I have ambivalence towards it because I hate vandalism, especially on historic buildings, but appreciating the artwork when well done. I don't usually take photos of grafs but the one below looked wonderful against the metal and brickwork...albeit a bit out of focus. I don't know whether it was because I was shaking from the cold and/or exhaustion, or the cold was affecting my camera, but many of my photos weren't very good from this site, apart from a few lucky ones.

The south terrace (below) showing the fan house on the revetment wall. Everyone else went up to take photos but I'm afraid I'd lost my energy and motivation by then and didn't feel up to getting up there.

Fan House on the revetment wall.

Fan House on the revetment wall.

I did manage to take some more photos though; the two above and one of the attractive River Ebbw running beneath the colliery lane.

At long last the others came back down (it was cold!) and we went off to a nearby cafe for hot drinks. Bliss! :)
 
Our group this weekend consisted of  -
 
Sheep (our host)
King Al
Smiley Sal
Crash Overdrive
Sharon
and me, FoxyLady
 
The final photo is of Smiley Sal hurrying to catch up with the others. I always seem to catch her when she's running! lol.

Interestingly, it just goes to show the difference in temperature between Wales and East Devon as it didn't get above minus 7°F in Newport but was so mild in Seaton that the next day I was out in just jeans and a thin jumper. Happy days! :)

Hafodyrynys Mine Washery, South Wales

 

The only part that remains of Hafodyrynys Coal Mine is this unique concrete-built washery slurry tower. Comprising several Gwent collieries linked underground and thereby turning it into a giant drift mine, Hafodyrynys New Mine was to become the centre of one of the National Coal Board's first big investments in South Wales.

Millions of pounds were invested in creating conveyor tunnels to link the workings at Glyntillary, Tirpentwy and Blaenserchan collieries and a new state of the art pit head was built, along with the washery. At least 50 years of reserves were expected from the colliery, but unfortunately geological problems arose after only 10 years, resulting in the end of production during 1966. Costs prohibited maintenance of the link from Blaenserchan, and production was switched to Abertillery in 1977. At which time, Hafodyrynys finally closed.

This was the first of the sunday explores during an Urbex weekend meet-up in South Wales in February 2008 (see the previous five posts for the saturday ones). 

There were some lovely ponies grazing around the base of the washery, and I recently read that this has been an area of pony breeding for some considerable time and continues to this day. Our host of the weekend broke the ice from their water troughs. The ice was at least two inches thick...at midday on a very sunny day. It was cold!

The windows above once held glass, but no longer there. All the internal workings have been removed - just a few pipe outlets remain - and there is no access inside. Nonetheless, it's an amazing site to visit, and very photogenic with the low sun making the concrete shine.

Last explore coming up next. :)

British Ironworks Colliery, Abersychan, South Wales

Visiting on a late afternoon with frost on the grass and the moon in a clear sky, it was quite magical. I loved it and it has remained one of my favourite explores since.

This was the third site on the Saturday of the urbex meet-up in February 2008 (see the previous two posts for the first two).

The British Iron Company was formed in 1824 by the mining engineer John Taylor, along with his associates James Henry Shears, a coppersmith, and a London merchant Robert Small. Several active ironworks were bought during 1825, along with land on which to build further mines for the smelting, manufacture and selling of iron bars.

Abersychan was one of the principal sites, having obtained a 60-year lease of property there in 1825, and construction began in 1826. From around 1840 iron rails were produced instead of bars and in 1852 the site was sold to the Ebbw Vale Company, remaining active until 1889.

Comprising the pumping engine-house, offices, foundry quadrangle and air furnace including six furnace openings, this is a Grade II* site due to its rarity as a surviving 19th century ironworks complex, and is thought to be the most complete one in Wales. Both the engine house and air furnace are scheduled as Ancient Monuments.

The Cornish beam pumping engine-house was installed in 1845 as part of the operations to drain the deeper levels. Built with sandstone bricks in the standard Cornish way, it consists of three storeys and the remains of a low pitched roof with Welsh slate. However, it does not have the attached chimney and boiler house that other examples of Cornish engine houses have. Most of the openings have been bricked up apart from the large arch opening on the south gable wall with projecting iron brackets. There are no traces of the engine itself or the surface remains of the shaft but remains of the timber beams can be seen through the large arch.

The offices, above and below.

Constructed of coarse sandstone with Welsh slate roofs, the buildings form a closed quadrangle, mostly single storey with the exception of the north-east pavilion, which is two-storeyed with plaster rendering over the brick and a hipped roof.

The doorway to the pavilion (above left) has ashlar quoins, eaves band, window and door surrounds. The photo above right is of one of the single-storey doorways. And another one below.
 

The two-storey office building once contained a central hallway with a staircase and four main rooms on each floor. However, as can be seen on the photos below, there was no floor or staircase to the top floor and hardly any interior dividing walls either! It was more than a bit dangerous going inside, to be honest, but that's the funny thing about viewing life through a camera as it tends to insulate yourself from what might happen. Fortunately, nothing dropped on us.

I found these views fascinating as without the floors and interior walls you can see the fireplaces and chimney breasts hanging on the upper walls, and some of the partitioning walls seem to be hanging on thin air.

The roof trusses are King Post design, with linked trusses at right angles, which are also evident on the remaining workshops. These enable the creation of large, open spaces. An example seen below, where some of the roof and walls have fallen in.

According to the listing information there may be significant remains of castings pits and a waterwheel or small steam engine to power the machinery in the workshops, which would be below floor level if existing. It also says that cast iron floor plates typically used in foundries can be seen in some places but I didn't see anything like that when we visited. Mind, I didn't see all of the site and there was a large amount of floor debris everywhere by then.

 The remaining chimney, below.

Just to the left of the above photo is where the air furnace is situated. I thought I had a photo of it but I can't seem to find it, so maybe not, lol. However, I do have a photo of one of the remaining bricked up furnace openings, below.

A couple of photos showing one of the workshops adjoining the two-storey building.

And finishing off with another of that fabulous engine house, complete with the moon above. Magic! :)