Oakdale Colliery

In the early years of the twentieth century the need for coal was growing both in America and Europe, and local business men in Wales were looking for new opportunities to fill the demand.

[1] Among these were a group known as the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company, made up of wealthy industrialists from the Maclaren, Markham, Pochin, Whitworth and Wyllie families.

They decided to create a group of collieries in the Sirhowy Valley, which explorations had told them contained rich seams of " black gold."

Work began clearing the site for the new colliery at Ty Mellyn, Oakdale, with the sinking of the pit in 1907.

At its peak in 1938 it employed a workforce of 2,235, when production reached one million tons per year.