Old Photos of Rhondda Collieries

Rhondda Valleys Information and History

Rhondda Valleys Collieries (Mines and Pits).

General View of the National Colliery, Wattstown 1910

By the early 1860's only 4,000 people lived in what we know today as the Rhondda Valley. Even that figure was far in excess of what it had been when the area was known only as Ystradyfodwg. There were by 1860 at least 13 deep mines, and many 'levels'. A level was where a mine was cut into the side of a mountain e.g. and mined horizontally, as opposed to a deep mine, where the miners would descend a shaft. At that time apart from the scattered farms, the only housing existed in those parts of Ystradyfodwg (later named the Rhondda) were where the coal mines had been sunk. The streets of the valleys are an almost continuous row of terraced houses where it can be difficult to know where one village begins and another ends.

I have laid out a great collection of old photographs of the coal mines of the Rhondda by village, most of which I have just purchased (December 2006), and have been scanned in high resolution. In addition, I have laid some of them out in chronological order of the sinking of the collieries.

These photographs will give you some idea of where the men and boys of the Rhondda might have worked. It did not necessarily follow that if you e.g. lived in Ynyshir you worked down an Ynyshir colliery. Many men and boys from Ynyshir for example , in fact worked down the National Colliery in Wattstown. I would be thrilled to receive photographs of Rhondda Collieries (indeed old photographs of anything / anyone in the Rhondda; - please email them to me here.

Click on a place name below to see high resolution photographs of Rhondda Coal Mines:-

Blaenclydach Clydach Vale Cwmparc Dinas Ferndale General Hopkinstown

Llwynypia Maerdy Pentre Penygraig Pontygwaith Pontypridd Porth / Cymmer

Ton Pentre Tonypandy Trehafod Treherbert Treorchy Tylorstown Wattstown

Ynyshir Ystrad / Gelli

There is an excellent new website with high resolution old photos of the United Kingdom (including the Rhondda Valleys) at www.oldukphotos.com
If you have any old family photos or pictures of the towns and villages please scan them in at least 1280 pixels width and email them here.

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