District industrial activities started with a 21-year lease of an area from the Marquess of Bute by the Quaker entrepreneur William Weston Young, for mining silica rock round Craig-y-Ddinas from 1822 onwards.

In 1857, the Vale of Neath Powder Co. built a "gunpowder manufactory", having obtained "a licence to erect their mills over a space of two miles including the Upper and Lower Cilliepste Falls".

[1] The site on the Mellte was chosen for remoteness and the availability of water power and timber for producing charcoal, an ingredient of gunpowder.

An inclined tramway wfrom a siding on the Vale of Neath Railway near Pen-cae-drain, brought in sulphur and saltpetre, the other ingredients.

The buildings were linked by a horse-drawn tramway, whose horses wore copper horseshoes to reduce the likelihood of sparks.