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Crimea Colliery & Canal Quay is a post-medieval and modern coal mine in Wales, protected by Cadw under reference GM453. The site exploits the thick coal seams of the South Wales Middle Coal Measures Formation, a geological deposit laid down during the Moscovian period of the Carboniferous era. These strata consist of alternating mudstone, siltstone and sandstone interbedded with commercially valuable coal and ironstone, a combination that made the South Wales coalfield one of Britain's most productive mining regions from the eighteenth century onwards.
The colliery takes its name from the Crimean War period, reflecting the Victorian industrial expansion that transformed the region. The associated canal quay marks the infrastructure essential to the colliery's operation: canal transport was vital for moving coal from pit-head to market before railway development. The bedrock geology underlying the site determined both the location and the character of mining here, with the Middle Coal Measures providing seams thick enough to sustain industrial extraction.
Today the remains of Crimea Colliery & Canal Quay stand as evidence of Wales's coal-based industrial heritage and the engineering networks that connected mines to wider commerce during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Crimea Colliery & Canal Quay is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference GM453. View the official record →
Crimea Colliery & Canal Quay is a post-medieval and modern coal mine in Wales, protected by Cadw under reference GM453.
Crimea Colliery & Canal Quay dates from the post medieval/modern period, and is classified as a coal mine. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Crimea Colliery & Canal Quay is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by Cadw — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Wales. The official designation reference is GM453.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Neath Castle (9.5 km), Cefn Morfydd Dyke & Earthwork (9.6 km), Neath Roman Site (9.6 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Crimea Colliery & Canal Quay's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Crimea Colliery & Canal Quay stands on Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation And South Wales Middle Coal Measures Formation (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Moscovian. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone, sandstone, coal, ironstone and ferricrete.