Hi there
I took the attached picture a while ago and want to put a label on it but I’m not able to as I’m not exactly sure what it is. I have a feeling it's Hetty Pit but when comparing it with the picture on your website, there are very slight differences, although it is very similar. If you could take a look at the picture and give me your opinion, I’d very much appreciate it. Thanks!!

Lee Alexander

See Stuart Tomlins Collection of Mining Pictures

Great Western Colliery, now as an abandoned mine at Hopkinstown, a mile or two up the Rhondda Valley from Pontypridd. The shaft is known as the Hetty shaft. The Hetty was the downcast and was sunk to the Six Feet Seam and was 398 yards deep. At the Hetty the Four Feet and Six feet Seams were worked. Both the Hetty and the No.2 Pits had been safely worked since 1877 when the shafts were first sunk to the steam coal measures.

Sparks from the wooden break blocks of a haulage engine set fire to nearby brattice sheets.
The fire spread quickly, fanned by the strong ventilation to ignite timber supports
sending dense clouds of smoke and fumes into the mines workings.
The death tally would have been much greater if it wasn't for the
brave action of the district fireman, Thomas Prosser, who ventured into the dense smoke
and by opening a set of air doors he diverted the noxious fumes out of the mine.
63 lost their lives.
The Disaster

The Disaster

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