Fan House at Hetty Shaft

Cadw's description

Location

On the W side of the engine house.

History

Ty Mawr Colliery was sunk in 1848 and its Hetty shaft was sunk by the Great Western Colliery Company in 1875, when the engine house was built (date on building). Coal was raised from a depth of 360m but by 1923 the seams were worked out. Subsequently the Hetty was used as an emergency shaft for Ty Mawr and Lewis Merthyr collieries and the engine, kept on standby, was converted for use with compressed air. The shaft was abandoned in 1983.

The surviving fan house was rebuilt c1950 in 'traditional' industrial style, when the Hetty shaft was used as an emergency shaft for Ty Mawr and Lewis Merthyr collieries. It retains a 'Sirocco' fan in situ.

Exterior

A single-storey fan house of snecked rock-faced stone, the openings (all now blocked) with brick jambs and concrete sills and lintels, and a flat roof of steel sheets. On the W side is a wide central doorway, reached up stone steps with concrete treads, with flanking windows. Further L is the cylindrical fan casing and then the curved brick flue with concrete roof, through which steel trunking is inserted to the evasee (and used to blow air into the shaft rather than draw it out). The E wall has 3 windows and the tall evasee at the N end. This has 2 pairs of cover plates. The S wall has a doorway to the R with external steel steps, and 2 windows.

Interior

Inaccessible at the time of inspection.

Reason for designation

Listed grade II* for industrial archaeological interest as one of the few complete surviving fan houses in the S Wales coalfield, and for group value with Hetty Engine House.

Scheduled Ancient Monument Gm 459.