The colliery was developed at a cost of £270,000 from 1889, by the Dowlais Iron Company, to feed a new steel works in Cardiff.

[1] Nationalisation took place on 1 January 1947, but the returning miners wanted better conditions, and many choose to commute to work at the newly developed Treforest Trading Estate.

Now only employing 1,100 men, the vacancies were in part filled by displaced and stateless Europeans, but even special allowances did not fulfil the labour needs of the mines.

In March 1975, it was linked underground via two parallel tunnels with Lady Windsor Colliery, which was situated on the other side of the mountain in Ynysybwl,[2] to form a single production unit at a cost of £450,000.

[4] The Lady Windsor Lodge assumed a leading role in the 1985/86 UK Miner's Strike, but on return to work the unit managed an impressive recovery obtaining 98% of expected output within a month.