Engine House and Fan House at Tower Colliery

Cadw's description

Location

Tower Colliery stands in the bowl of Mynydd Beili-glas, W of the A4061 Hirwaun to Treherbert Road. The Engine House is to the S of the complex, next to the headframe.

History

Tower Colliery was established by the Marquis of Bute in about 1870, on the northern outcrop of the South Wales coalfield. It has always been one of the highest collieries in Wales in altitude, and is in an impressive location below Craig y Llyn. The Tower No. 4 shaft was sunk in 1941 and opened in 1944 by the Powell Duffryn Steam Coal Company, and was further expanded by the National Coal Board from the 1950s. The Engine House and Fan House date from the Powell Duffryn period of development, and are in a characteristic house style. They house the winding engine, compressor engines, switchgear, and fan brough from Bwllfa Colliery in Cwmdare.

Exterior

The engine house comprises a long, gabled hall with a lower projection to the rear (E) elevation, and a fan chamber built on its NW corner with a small flat-roof extension next to it. The building is of brick with corrugated asbestos-cement roof with 2 ridge ventilators. Small-pane iron-framed windows have raised, rusticated jambs in typical Powell-Duffryn style, and concrete lintels The hall has 3 tall windows on either of the long elevations, offset so that those on the E side light the N end of the hall, and those on the W the S end. The N end of the W side has openings for the cable between the winding engine and headframe. The 2-window S gable end has, below the smaller R-hand window, a blocked round-headed opening. The rear projection has 6 iron-framed windows and single-window returns.
The fan chamber is irregular in shape, with raked profile where it projects in front of the engine house W wall, with a tall evasee at the N end.

Interior

A Scirocco fan by Davidson of Belfast is powered by 2 AEI electric motors. The electric winding engine has mechanical work by Fullerton Hodgart Barclay, electrical work by Metropolitan Vickers and brakes by Andrew Barclay. Arches lead from the main hall into the rear projection which houses the switchgear, by South Wales Switchgear. The floor is in herringbone red brick. The overhead mechanical crane, by Herbert Morris of Loughborough, is still in place.

Reason for designation

Listed as a now rare example of a smaller engine house of its type, and for group value with the headframe of the colliery in this impressive setting.