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Dist:0.3km<br/>This digger has been parked here for a very long time, probably for quite some time even while Betws Anthracite mine was still working. Not only was the tree growing through it but the tires and other perishable items showed signs of great age.

The picture was taken along a right of way that follows an old track that pre-dates the trackway that ran from the mine to the spoil heaps behind. The track to the spoil heaps is now silent and the mine rapidly turning into housing and industrial units.

©Hywel Williams

©Anthony Gostling

Dist:0.4km<br/>I was the last one to paint this barn back in the 70's, farmhouse & cowshed tear down many years ago.

©Anthony Gostling

Dist:0.4km<br/>To become Ammanford No 1 Colliery, Mr Henry Herbert was more than a property developer, however, and he also established a drift mine at Bodyst Isaf in Hopkinstown, working the outcrop of the 'Red Vein' seam. It was in 1890 that he sank this mine on the Betws Mountain but soon sold out his undertaking to a syndicate of wealthy Lancashire coal owners who created a new company, the Ammanford Colliery Company Ltd. The company was formed with a share capital of �40,000 in �10 shares. Within a short time after the takeover the company decided to close the operation at Bodyst-isaf and open a new slant on land attached to Glyn-cywrch Farm, again working the outcrop of the 'Red Vein' seam. These workings were to be called Ammanford No 1 Colliery, later to be known to the miners as 'Top Works'.
Expanding their operations in 1891 another slant was driven near to where Maesquarre Road joins Pentwyn Road and this was called the Ammanford No 2 Colliery, later to be referred to as the Ammanford Little Vein Colliery, and which was more or less the focal point of mining activities in the area.
By 1908 Ammanford No 1 (Red Vein) was producing anthracite coal with a workforce of 245 underground workers and 20 surface workers. Ammanford No 2 (Little Vein) was producing coal with 278 men underground and 104 surface workers the larger number of surface workers presumably being employed on the shared washery. Thus the Ammanford Colliery Company were providing work for a total of 747 men.
I last saw this mine, and been down it...!, over 20 years ago, it has now been cap off again.

©Anthony Gostling

Dist:0.4km<br/>In 1924 the Ammanford Colliery Company Ltd was sold to a much larger organisation, the United Anthracite Collieries Ltd.
A major industrial dispute in 1925 had a serious effect on coal mining in the area resulting in the closure of the Ammanford No 1 Colliery (Top Works). This was the Anthracite Strike of 1925, which had started in Ammanford at the end of April that year. During the next four months Ammanford was the epicentre for riots and mass demonstrations whose shock waves were felt all over the district. On one day alone, July 30th 1925, there were riotous disturbances simultaneously at Ammanford square; Ammanford No 2 colliery, where there was a police baton charge; at Betws; and also at Wernos, Pantyffynnon and Llandybie collieries. And the major battle was yet to come, the so-called 'Battle of Ammanford' which occurred on August 4th. In total 198 miners were arrested with 58 being jailed for periods of up to one year.
In 1927 yet further changes occurred, with the United Anthracite Collieries Ltd. itself being merged into a much larger conglomerate, the Amalgamated Anthracite Collieries Ltd., setting up offices and headquarters in Tycoch.
Ammanford No 2 expanded during this period and a railway and sidings were added. Attached to the site, and owned by the Ammanford No 2 colliery, was a brickwork�s which ran alongside the railway sidings. This produced bricks which were stamped 'Ammanford Colliery' until nationalisation of the colliery in 1947 after which they bore the name of 'Ammanford' only. The brickworks was closed by the NCB in 1960 though the chimneystack of its kilns was a familiar sight until recent times and can be seen in all the photographs of the colliery.

©Anthony Gostling

Dist:0.4km<br/>These and the spoil heaps are all that remain from the colliery. The rest is being redeveloped for business units and residences.

©Nigel Davies

Dist:0.4km<br/>This is a view taken on a crisp clear evening from the Betws Mountain picnic area of Ammanford and surrounding area. The red lights on the horizon are emitting from Carmel transmitter mast. The sky was in fact pitch dark, the foreground and sky are illuminated by a full moon.

©Hywel Williams

Dist:0.5km<br/>From an adjacent spoil heap, this ruin is all that can be seen. The washery and the tracks to the spoil heaps are marked with posts and bunting. Perhaps they are being redeveloped too.

©Nigel Davies

Dist:0.6km<br/>This Pumping Station pumps water up to the Storage Facility on Betws Mountain

©John Morris

Dist:0.6km<br/>As a remnant of the closed mine, possibly this rusty sign may well be still in use by new tenants to direct traffic back down the road...

©Hywel Williams

Dist:0.6km<br/>Mine Memorial on Maesquarry Road

©Anthony Gostling

Dist:0.7km<br/>This tree on the eastern edge of the colliery seems to have survived between the spoil heap and the access track up it.

©Nigel Davies

Dist:0.7km<br/>The new road to Betws New Mine taken on 26 July 1974.
This is what it looks like in 2008 - [[953012]]

©N.C.B

Dist:0.8km<br/>When the road was new - see [[953005]]

$Dist:1.1km north<br/>A phenomenon seen when fine ice crystals in the upper atmosphere refracts the sun's rays. A halo (parhelic circle) forms at 22� around the sun when it's close to the horizon on crisp evenings (just visible in this photograph) and two "mock suns" appear on either side of the sun at 90� and 270�, often being seen as two tiny rainbows. The sun in this picture is way overexposed causing it to seem bloated (and actually damaged the camera's CCD while taking this picture!)$

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