CYNHEIDRE: Families gather as the colliery’s 37 lost miners are named in stone at the old pit

The 37 men who died at Cynheidre Colliery are now remembered in stone at the old pit site, after the colliery’s permanent memorial was unveiled on Sunday in front of their families and the miners who worked alongside them.

The memorial stands at the Llanelli and Mynydd Mawr Railway, the volunteer-run heritage line built on part of the former colliery site in the Gwendraeth Valley, a few miles north of Llanelli.

Relatives attended a morning ceremony, where a wreath of red roses was laid beneath the names, before the site opened to the public for a free open day, announced last month alongside the railway’s new heritage woodland.

The names and ages of the 37 men are carved into a black granite panel, framed in oak and set into a stone cairn. The memorial also honours the many miners whose lives were cut short by illness after years working underground.

Beneath the names, the stone carries a bilingual inscription that ends: “And what is coal that so much blood should be upon it?”

A smaller plaque below records a name the memorial’s researchers only recently found. It reads: “Following further research, the name of the first man to lose his life at Cynheidre Colliery has been added to this memorial. Erich Lamsfuss, 41.”

Cllr Alex Evans, who represents the Glyn ward on Carmarthenshire Council, spoke at the unveiling as the great-nephew of one of the 37 and the grandson of a miner who spent more than 20 years underground at Cynheidre.

He described it as a very special morning at the site. “It was wonderful to see so many families and retired miners visit the memorial today. It was an incredible experience hearing some of their stories from their time at the colliery,” he said.

“So many families across our communities have connections to Cynheidre Colliery, and it’s fantastic to know that there is now a permanent memorial here for people to visit and remember for generations to come.”

The railway said it was “incredibly proud and humbled after a fantastic day”, thanking S W Monumental Masons for their work on the stone.

Sunk by the National Coal Board in the 1950s as one of west Wales’s anthracite “super pits”, Cynheidre employed more than a thousand men at its height before mining there ended in 1989.

Its darkest day came on 6 April 1971, when six miners were killed and dozens more hurt as gas and fine coal burst into the workings, in what has been described as the worst outburst of its kind in Britain.

The memorial now anchors the railway’s heritage woodland, where recordings of around 20 former Cynheidre miners tell the pit’s story in their own voices as visitors walk the site. The project was backed by an £85,000 grant from the Welsh Government and the Heritage Lottery through the Woodland Investment Grant.

The railway charity has been developing the old pit site since 1999, and marked its post-pandemic reopening with three former Transport for Wales Pacer trains that ended 30 years in service in 2021.

For anyone wishing to visit the memorial, the railway says the best times are Thursdays and Fridays between 11am and 3pm, and Saturdays between 10am and 3pm, when the Caffi SuperSprinter café at the site is open.