Cinder Pits, Blaenafon.
Cinder Pits was one of the early major mining ventures in the Blaenafon area. It was sunk to supply the thriving Iron Foundries of the district with Iron stone.
The two vertical shafts at Cinder Pits were opened pre 1812.
On the 28th of November 1838 a disaster occurred
here, when two days of heavy snowfall was followed by torrential
rain causing a deluge of water to run off the surrounding
hills and swamping the shafts, thus drowning 13 men and 2
women.
Monmouthshire Merlin, December 1st 1838
Cinder Pit Disaster, 28th November 1838
On the 28th after 2 day incessant rain and following snow of some duration, about midday, the sky was suddenly darkened by the accumulation of dense clouds upon Waun Avon and along the Coity, in the dis(trict) of Varteg, when an immediate discharge occurred, which inundated the works and almost filled the valley, causing a sudden rise in the river of many feet additional, and bursting over an embankment which protected the mouth of an old level leading to the deep coal and ironworks of the Blaenavon Company. Messengers were dispatch to the different workings and the miners and colliers, to the extent of many hundreds, immediately came out. Every effort to divide and check the torrent was most energetically made, which from the numerous workmen in the employment of the Company, and the almost immediate cessation of the rain, was accomplished in a few hours, but melancholy to relate not before some of the headings (and one which has for years been worked "under level") were filled in water. In this there is no doubt 14 lives are lost. The damage to the Works is trifling. The pumping, which alone can enable the workmen to reach the bodies of the sufferers, had been urged with every possible speed, and every means of drawing water adopted, yet it will be several days before their bodies can be obtained - 11 men (7 unmarried), 2 girls and 1 boy. It is to be feared that some lost their lives through not feeling sufficiently alarmed to leave with the same rapidity as their fellow miners. One. and old man, returned to fetch his lantern. Another we understand, would not leave his son (8) and both are missing . One true hero - brave man - seized a boy not related and put him on his shoulders and carried him above the water a considerable distance while he himself was covered by the flood.
Even though this report states that 14 miners lost their lives, the list of names below, which is copied from St. Peter's Church, burial regester show that the actual death toll was 15.
James Ashman 24 Thomas Alsop 21 Caleb Cresswell 12 David Evans 30 William Evans 10 Mary Hale 16 Elizabeth Havard 9 Edward Jones 33 Henry Jones 15 John Jones 38 John Morris - Phillip Price - John Sutton 26 George Taylor 21 Thomas Thomas 60
Owned by the Blaenavon Iron and Steel Company, it closed in 1895.
Abiathur Jones's Pit, Abersychan
Sunk by the British Iron Company to supply coal and ironstone for the Abersychan Iron Works. It was a water balance pit, which was named after a mining contractor, who died of burns in a gas explosion at the pit in 1843.
On the morning of 18th of March 1845 nine miners, including three boys were descending the shaft to begin their shift's work, when the flat chain slipped off the pulley wheel and the resulting jolt snapped the chain near the surface. The open-topped bucket plummeted 50 yards to the pit bottom, followed by three tons of the broken chain, which fell upon the men. Two were killed instantly and three others died later of their injuries, no one escaped without serious injury.
The dead;Thomas Davies
Elisha Hare
George Hurley
John Jacob
John Watkins
The blame was attributed to the effects of a sharp frost on the solid iron.
At the time of the accident the owners were the New British Iron Company.