Qualla: Albion Colliery https://qualla.com/albion-colliery en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Albion Colliery https://qualla.com/albion-colliery Albion Colliery: Introduction https://qualla.com/albion-colliery/ Of the 125 pit ponies underground at the Albion Colliery that Saturday afternoon, only two came back up alive. The men did not fare much better. At four o'clock on 23 June 1894, the night shift had just descended into the Cilfynydd pit to clear coal dust and shore up the roadways. Eight minutes was all it took. A blast of firedamp - the methane that seeps from coal seams - touched off a chain reaction in the suspended dust, and the explosion ripped through the workings on the Groves level. Two hundred and ninety men and boys never came up. The youngest were thirteen. It remains, after the Senghenydd disaster of 1913, the second-worst mining catastrophe in Welsh history.

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/t/albion-colliery-wp/gcjt-albion-colliery-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Albion Colliery: Sinking the Pit https://qualla.com/albion-colliery/ The Albion Steam Coal Company began work at Ynyscaedudwg Farm in 1884, one mile north of Pontypridd in a narrow valley along the road that today is the A470 to Llandudno. Two shafts went down, nineteen feet wide, set thirty-three yards apart, sunk to a depth of 646 yards through ...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/t/albion-colliery-wp/gcjt-albion-colliery-sinking-the-pit.mp3 0:06 2 full Albion Colliery: What the Work Cost https://qualla.com/albion-colliery/ The miners cut the coal by hand with picks, lying on their sides in seams two or three feet high, breathing dust thick enough to taste. The price of the work was paid in the body. Crushed fingers, broken spines, ribs that healed crooked from the bent-over labour. Black spit, and ...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/t/albion-colliery-wp/gcjt-albion-colliery-what-the-work-cost.mp3 0:06 3 full Albion Colliery: Eight Minutes on a Saturday https://qualla.com/albion-colliery/ The 23 June shift was a Saturday afternoon shift - newly introduced and, as the inquiry would later determine, fatally rushed. There was no time between shifts to clear or dampen the dust. The men were repairing roadways and clearing the working faces when the explosion came. The...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/t/albion-colliery-wp/gcjt-albion-colliery-eight-minutes-on-a-saturday.mp3 0:06 4 full Albion Colliery: The Inquest https://qualla.com/albion-colliery/ The colliery was reopened within two weeks. The inquest, held at Pontypridd that August, dragged on for nine days as owners, inspectors and witnesses argued over what had ignited what. The jury was sure the gas had been accelerated by coal dust but could not agree on the spark. T...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/t/albion-colliery-wp/gcjt-albion-colliery-the-inquest.mp3 0:06 5 full Albion Colliery: After the Pit https://qualla.com/albion-colliery/ Albion kept working. By 1908 there were 2,589 men on the books; production peaked at 325,000 tons in 1934. The Albion Company went into liquidation in 1928, the assets bought by Powell Duffryn, the workings nationalised after the war into the National Coal Board in 1947. Penrhiwc...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/t/albion-colliery-wp/gcjt-albion-colliery-after-the-pit.mp3 0:06 6 full