The museum, located near the hamlet of Crynant in the Dulais Valley five miles north of Neath, recounts the storey of coal mining at the Cefn Coed Colliery, which was formerly the world’s deepest anthracite coal mine. Cefn Coed was one of Wales’ most hazardous coalmines, with many workers dying in perilous working circumstances, earning the colliery the moniker “The Slaughterhouse.”
The museum tells the narrative of the hundreds of men who worked in Cefn Coed and other pits in South West Wales’ anthracite coalmines via words, photographs, and artefacts. The subterranean exhibit, which simulates a working seam, brings these dreadful circumstances to life.
The museum has a restored 1927 Worsley Mesnes Horizontal Duplex Cylinder Steam Winding engine, which is perhaps the institution’s crowning achievement. This enormous winder, which was formerly driven by steam when the site was a functioning colliery, is now powered by electricity, but its grandeur never ceases to amaze admirers the world over.
