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View Full Version : Penallta Colliery , Hengoed - Jan 08



sinnerman
05-11-2008, 11:22 AM
Penallta colliery has been a bit of a regular haunt for me since first visiting almost a year ago when i found it completely inaccessable, i've stopped by every few weeks since then looking for a chance. Luckily now that conversion work as begun the situation has changed and with a bit of thought parts of the Colliery are accessable again with. The workers compound has moved position so its now tucked out off the way and more importantly obscured from view and a hell of a lot of the razor wire has disapeared. I am glad to see that the bathhouse which was to be demolished in the orginal plans is now included in the development.

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Visited with someone else on the 5 of Jan, we first made our way to the amazing power house this design which intergrated the generating facility winding engines and the fan house into a single long building is typical of the collierys built By the Powell Duffryn Company which began work on Penallta in 1906. I have a good understanding how an ordinary colliery with its seperate surface buildings works so i was really glad to get in to penallta's powerhouse and get to grips with the way these vast halls operated. It had started to rain when we were on our way across the pit head but once we had both made our way inside a thunder storm broke, it was incredibly atmospeheric inside huge main hall as thunder claps echoed around. The main hall is amazing although i was disapointed to find that the huge winding drums Dweeb and Turk had seen are now gone, the pits where they would have once revolved at high speed now half full with rubble.

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along side the main hall is the fan housing and the fan's engine room. very little of equipment is in situ but its original location can be seen from the mounts on the floor, But the fan is still there and can be accessed from the maintence passage judging from its inside circumfrence it must be about 18 foot in diameter.

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After leaving the power house we made our way to the downcast headgear Snapple easily made his way to the top but unfortunatley my poor choice of footware meant i kept slipping so i decided to give it a miss today. We then had to spend a little bit of time dodging workers as we made our way inside the engineering hall, to see the conversion work, So far the interior walls and a couple of stair wells are in place looks like there doing a decent job might have to have a viewing once the apartments are available would be great to have a view out over the two headgears.

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Final stop was a sneek past security to the bathhouse, unfortunaley there was no way in all of the ground floor and the climbable windows have been bricked up still it should open up a little more when asbestos removal begins.

Visited again with rooks, ether and Fieldy. lot more work on going on site now looks like they have are about to strip out the power house. I'd go soon if you want to see it with the plaster work intact. Not many photos from me today just some paperwork i came across in the depths of the powerhouse basement, including some nice electrical diagrams and draftmans plans dated 1957, with the Colliery name and National Coal Board branding. and a gratuitous headgear shot. still no access available to the bathhouse just a second series of bare basement rooms accessed today. they've went a bit mad with the breeze blocks every door and window on the first and second floors is sealed tight.

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Have deffinate plans to go back and have now worked out a way into the Bathhouse so if anyone interested in joining up for a visit drop me a line, Works going on at pace so might no be too much time left for Penallta it will all be flats soon.

KingElvis
06-11-2008, 09:13 AM
Stunning mate, the hall is a thing of greatness.