A walk through time…
In our latest blog GCRE Business Development Officer, Craig Whitney, looks at the industrial history of the local area and sees resonance with what’s coming next
Over the last year we’ve talked many times on the pages of this blog about how, as the Global Centre of Rail Excellence idea develops, the connections with the area’s history become more striking – continuities with the past become more apparent.
This thought comes to me most evenings as I walk the dog along the route of the old rail sidings directly adjacent to the GCRE site.
These days the entire backdrop of the area looks very different to how it once did, certainly since the National Coal Board shut the last of the Banwen collieries in 1964. In the early part of the 20th Century this area was a hive of industry.
Originally the route I walk was a spur line linking Banwen Colliery to the main Neath and Brecon line which feeds into the Washery, and which will be the future site of the GCRE Headquarters. The exact dates are unclear, but the line probably originates from the late 19th century, a time of great economic expansion for the entire South Wales coalfield.
As I climb up onto the ridge that formed the trackway, evidence of rail and the retaining brackets spring up from the ground. All along the relatively short route there are clear reminders of the line that once carried coal from Banwen the mile or so back to Onllwyn. If you look hard enough, still evident are the spikes that connected the sleepers to the rails, with remains of the actual sleepers still embedded in the earth. You can even cross an iron bridge and see where the route opens out for local leisure and dog walking, now landscaped and kept looking splendid by local volunteers.
Reaching the site of the (now removed) bridge, you can see clearly where it once crossed the road and entered Banwen proper, now a beautiful country park and community fishery. Just 100 metres up the road, on the pavement just outside the park, there remains a weighbridge and a solitary coal dram to remind you of the proud history of this area.
But there is much earlier evidence of coal working locally, where the anthracite coal seams almost outcrop, being only a few feet below the surface in some parts. A few former local pubs even had their beer cellars excavated from pure coal seams!
Mining began in this area in 1743 under Waunmarchog, which in 1845 became Maesmarchog colliery and later still Onllwyn No3 colliery. But everyone locally knew it as Banwen colliery.
In 1925 it was the one of the collieries involved in the Rock Riot. The manager of No1 pit Ammanford refused to observe the seniority rule, with fierce fighting breaking out and the Deputy Chief Constable of Carmarthenshire being badly beaten. The men crossed over into the Dulais Valley and marched up to Banwen. Meeting them at the Colliery was the entire Glamorgan police force. Nearly 200 miners faced prosecution for their part in the riots, 58 of whom received prison sentences of between two and 18 months.
In 1947, local historian and writer George Brinley Evans returned to work in Banwen after his wartime service. He vividly painted the scene:
“At Banwen there were 1,300 men and 90 horses working. The stables were as good as anything you would see at Newmarket. They were immaculate. The horses were washed, and because it was a drift mine the horses came out every day and were hosed down with the water used in the engine houses.”
Now nature has taken back much of that landscape, but the reminders of the past are still there if you look closely.
What strikes you very strongly is that this area has been a hive of industry, of manufacturing – and of innovation – for more than two centuries, with rail playing a critical part in that history.
How interesting that a new chapter of that story is about to be written. Another story of innovation; of skilled industry and breaking new economic ground.
The past is not a foreign country after all.
