Mines in the sky

The old colliery winding wheels are mostly all taken down, but the two at Penalta are still sat in place as a monument to the miners who lost there lives in the area.The Senghenydd Colliery Disaster, also known as the Senghenydd Explosion (Welsh: Tanchwa Senghennydd), occurred in Senghenydd, near Caerphilly, Glamorgan, Wales, on 14 October 1913, killing 439 miners and one rescuer. It is the worst mining accident in the United Kingdom, and one of the most serious globally in terms of loss of life. The explosion gained this distinction nearly half a century after the previous worst disaster – the Oaks explosion at Oaks Pit, in Barnsley, Yorkshire, on 12 December 1866, when 388 workers died in two separate explosions, Just one of many in the valleys of this area near to Penalta !