In
1979 I happened to be visiting Wenvoe Quarry in South Wales when a bench in the
quarry had just intersected some mine workings. I was lucky to be the first to
explore these with the quarry foreman. I knew of the existance of mine workings
in the area the small section in the south eastern corner of the plan was already
accessible.
Whilst there is the possibility of very early exploitation I have found some small reports on the mine in the Mining Journal. For example 29th January 1859
'The Wenvoe Iron Ore Company, to whose heamatite ore we have had previous occasion to refer are understood to be disposing of their produce as rapidly as it can be supplied. Several thousand tons have been sold at good prices and it is even stated that some orders have been declined , in consequence of large demand! This looks like prosperity'.
It is surprising what miniscule holes in the ground in the old county of Glamorganshire were talked up in this manner. There was some small scale production through to 1861 and a new company the Wenvoe Red Heamatite Iron Ore Company was formed in 1864 and whilst 5752 tons were produced there was no production recorded the following year. There appears to have been some intermittent small scale activity into the mid 1870's and towards the end of the century I have heard that the mine was active again the Crawshay company is said to have been involved. We found a date on a wall in the workings of 1910 (not evidence that it was done whilst the mine was active). In 1919 the Wenvoe Iron Ore Company is listed in the official statistics with 4 persons employed above ground. From this point on activity seems to have moved towards quarrying limestone.
I made several trips back to fully explore the workings and recently I found the slides taken by Simon Stratford. Many thanks to Geoff Noble for cleaning and scanning them, I'll try and look after them better this time! The plan is a sketch based on a compass survey and records the position of each of the slides, click on the purple arrows to see each photo use the back button to return to the plan. I am hoping to rescan the slides and have better quality images up soon (June 2007).
Wenvoe Iron Mine Archives chronological record of activty