Tower Colliery, near Rhigos, South Wales.

Tower Colliery was the oldest continuously working deep mine in the UK and some say, the world. It first started life as a drift mine operated by locals in the 1700,s and gradually increased over the years in size and output until its closure by British Coal in April 1994 on the grounds that it was no longer economically viable.  239 of the miners each pledged  £8,000 of their redundancy payment to buy the colliery back and on 2nd January 1995 after a long battle against stiff resistance from the government , the miners marched back into Tower as coal owners. After a further 13 more years of production, the experts thought that the mine was becoming uneconomic and sadly on 25th January 2008, it closed for the last time. The owners are still debating the future of the site, but it seems likely that it will be developed into housing, industrial units and an industrial heritage museum. A lot of the machinery from Tower has been sent to the nearby Aberpergwm Colliery which is a smaller drift mine to help boost production there.