Adit Mine - Cwmbran Colliery: The photograph, pictured right, shows the entrance to the adit mine at Cwmbran Colliery, together with the coal trams which is part of Cwmbran's industrial heritage, and although the entrance is now covered by ivy and other vegetation, it is still visible.

In 1879, the Patent Nut and Bolt Company opened Cwmbran Colliery, an adit mine - which means a horizontal entrance or passage into a mine - at the head of Springvale Valley.

A coke oven plant, fed from the mine by a conveyor belt, was added soon afterwards to provide the fuel for the blast furnace and the foundries, and by 1900 the Cwmbran Colliery was also servicing the large canal side works of Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds.

In 1926, there was the ill-fated miners strike followed in 1927 by the closure of the Cwmbran Colliery, where over a thousand men had been employed, causing severe unemployment and economic hardship in Cwmbran.

Water has always been a problem in the mining industry and the Cwmbran Adit Mine was no exception.

There was an abundance of water pouring out of the mine shaft after it closed, and the former Cwmbran Urban District Council was the water authority until 1961, and responsible for the domestic supply within the urban area.

In periods of water shortages, water was pumped from the adit mine to a filter house in Upper Cwmbran and then into the supply system.

One of the problems with the water from the adit was that it was discoloured, influenced by the mineral deposits in the shaft, so that householders of the area knew when the adit water was "switched on" because it was tainted, but perfectly safe to drink.

The adit mine was a source of employment for nearly fifty years and then played the important role as the provider of water for many years in times of water shortages.

Sadly the entrance to the adit mine as we see it now is one of the very few monuments left to Cwmbran's industrial heritage.

by G H Lawrence