Colliery Ventilation Furnace at Llandafal

Cadw's description

Location

Located on a wooded hillside to the SW of the site of the former Marine Colliery, immediately uphill from a metal bridge over the Ebbw River.

History

Early-mid C19. This part of the Ebbw Valley was connected to the ironworks at the head of the valley and the Monmouthshire Canal at Crumlin via the Beaufort tramroad, as early as 1796. The ventilation furnace probably dates from mining developments in the 1840s or 1850s, and was disused by 1876. The furnace is typical of its date, the shaft beneath the chimney connected to underground workings, a fire lit at the bottom of the shaft drawing air through the mine to exit from the chimney. Such furnaces were commonly used in South Wales until the end of the C19, but few survive in good condition. Most shown in contemporary illustrations had chimneys which were circular in plan and squat in elevation, like this example, but no others of this form are known to survive.

Exterior

Construction of brown and yellow firebrick, with black mortar. Circular in plan, the diameter approximately 3.5m. Vertical sides rising to approximately 7m Thick walls topped by large diamond patterned coping bricks. A small blocked archway on the S side may have been intended for an additional flue to be added. The air shaft is connected to a stone-lined drift of similar date, entering the hill from the riverbank below.

Reason for designation

Listed as an early air furnace colliery chimney, the only one of this typical form known to survive in South Wales.