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Airway and water course at Cwmdows Colliery, Newbridge..
Work probably started at this colliery as early as 1830.
By 1842 it was owned by Messrs. Morrison and Powell. The following is an extract from the Royal Commission Report 1842.
CWMDOUS COLLIERY, parish of Mynyddislwyn, county of Monmouth, Messrs. Morrison and Powell, proprietors. Mr. Evan Jenkins, agent. Morgan Morgan, aged 6, collier Joseph Absalom, aged 6, collier. Thomas Lewis, aged 7, collier. Jacob Jones, aged 9, collier. Samuel Rees, aged 11, air-door boy. John Morgan, aged 15, haulier. Lewis Rees, aged 17, haulier.
This level worked the Upper and Lower Mynyddislwyn seams, which were about four feet and three feet thick respectively. These seams lay about 10 feet apart in this particular area and it was sometimes possible to work both seams from the same roadways, by working the lower seam for a distance them breaking up to the upper seam and loading the coal via the short shafts in the roadway.
By 1880 it was in the hands of T. Stroud of Newport. Later Twyn Gwyn Colliery Co. Ltd. took over the running of Cwmdows but they concentrated coal production at the nearby Twyn Gwyn colliery, which in 1896 employed only 12 men.
The workforce in 1908 numbered 37.
Around 1912 production restarted at Cwmdows and in 1918 and 1924 it was employing 89 and 96 men respectively.
Both collieries are shown on the Map of ironworks and collieries in Monmouthshire, by John Prujean, 1843.
Closed in the early 1930's.
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The nearly buried mouth of Twyn Gwyn Colliery, 2005