ALBION ROAD COLLIERY

Many thanks to Mr. Bryan Roden for use of this postcard.

This is a view of the Crumlin Valley railway line, It was taken near the Old Crumlin road, with Baldwin's Albion Rd slope colliery, (Clog and Legging' in the background) The slope level was established around the turn of the century on the site of the Glyn Pits no 3 and 4 colliery which was abandoned in 1894. This railway is now the site of the new Pontypool - Crumlin by-pass, and if you follow from the trucks in the picture to the extreme distance of the railway line, you will be in the locality of the new Clarence roundabout at Pontypool.

The black bridge on the right of the picture crossed the railway to the Clog and Legging / Glyn Pits 1 and 2 / Glyn ponds area. The tram rails in the foreground were from the Gypsy level, which is just behind the photographer. In order to get to the Glyn pits 1 and 2, which were to the right of the camera, but out of camera-shot at the top right of the picture, it was necessary to cross this bridge and walk up the tram road. Although this bridge has now been demolished, access on foot is still by the same route of the tram-road, but nowadays off the Pontypool - Crumlin by-pass.

Due to the absence of photographs taken underground at the Glyn Pits, most of the underground pictures used on these pages are from the mine seen above, which was Baldwin’s Albion road Colliery, 'Clog and Legging'. The procedures used would have been identical in both mines, even though some seventy years had elapsed since the sinking of the Glyn Pits in the early 1840s, and the time these photographs were taken.

In those times getting around after dark would have been a tricky task especially at night time for the miners from these mines. When speaking to someone living in a bungalow which had the tram road in view he said that as a child he remembered seeing lights bobbing up and down with men walking down the tram road, on the afternoon shift The lighting for this was a piece of cotton waste "used for cleaning the engines" dipped into some old oil and lit, lighting up a miners way home.

General Manager of the Clog and Legging. with Mr Brace, Manager on the right.

Photograph courtesy of National Museum of Wales

This photograph shows the General Manager and the Mine Manager at Baldwin's Albion Road Colliery the 'Clog and Legging'. Although these men seem reasonably well dressed, it was obviously a posed photograph. Even so, many of these managers were working managers, and spent a lot of their time in the mine, rather than the office. This level was driven into the bottom of the Glyn Pit numbers 1& 2 and was on the site of the disused Glyn Pits numbers 3 & 4 shafts, which were at a lower level, close to the village called Old Furnace, on the Albion Road / Crumlin Road.