Tower Colliery
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Tower Colliery is the oldest, continuously worked deep-coal mine in the United Kingdom, and possibly the world, and the only mine of its kind which remains in the South Wales Valleys. It is located near the villages of Hirwaun and Rhigos, north of the town of Aberdare in the Cynon Valley south Wales.
The colliery was worked from 1805 until the late 1990s, when the Conservative government sought to close it down. In 1994, the constituency MP, Ann Clwyd staged a sit-in in the mine to protest its closure, and later that year many of the original mineworkers banded together to purchase the colliery. The mine has remained financially viable and has continued to provide employment to the workers, in an indictment upon the government's coal mining policy which had forced the closure of the mine for reasons of economics. The colliery is one of the largest employers in the Cynon Valley.
The Aberdare branch of the Merthyr line continues north from Aberdare railway station to the colliery. While passenger services terminate in Aberdare, a freight services operates, several times a day, along this stretch of line, owned by the colliery.
Due to dwindling coal seams, the colliery is expected to close by Late 2008/Early 2009. According to Tyrone O'Sullivan (Tower chairman) the 480 acres site is expected to be redeveloped into an open-cast mine after the closure.
There has also been talk of using machinery from Tower to boost production at the nearby Aberpergwm Colliery, a smaller mine closed by the NCB in 1985 but reopened by a private concern in the mid 1990s.
