[martymarty]

Ive put here as its now more industrial than underground related...

Ive always wondered what was left at Point Of Ayr, building wise, and thought it as an industrial playground which I had forgotten about, seen as I am usually obsessed with Welsh slate, I thought I would venture just a few miles down the road to see what was left and it appeared I was 10 Years too late for my second taste of welsh coal,

Now obviously Im not getting into the drift its probably got 30 tonne of concrete on top of it and I dont even know where to look for starters and the shafts are capped just the same and very hard to see with the surface being heavily landscaped, Maps are not readily available and google is not my friend on this one, even just for the surface workings so as I could pin point where I was walking would have helped but the coal board wont give those details easily, so it was just a gentle wander clicking away at what I thought could be some major features and some I really didnt have a clue about, so you'll see a lot of could be's and might be's ..but I cant find an aerial map anywhere for reference so only the major things ive taken pictures of but a good few hours walking the dog and still very interesting. I was also very supprised to see so many people walking dogs and wandering around there.

A bit of stolen history courtesy of Dave Sallery and Stuart Tomlins.

Point of Ayr Colliery was at Fynnongroew in North Wales. It was situated on reclaimed land on the Dee estuary. Both shafts were within yards of the sea. Sunk in 1873 then abandoned and reopened in 1883.
Taken over by the N.C.B in 1947, a third shaft was added topped with a concrete headgear. The original shafts were then both used as upcasts.
A drift was added in the early 80's and all the coal came to surface via conveyor in the drift. The workings extended out under the sea.

Point of Ayr, the last in North Wales, closed in 1996. At one time coal was exported by sea using the colliery's own fleet of ships. In its final years it supplied power station coal to Fiddlers Ferry power station near Warrington. The coal seams were worked under the Dee estuary and, despite extensive reserves, it closed as a result of the reduced demand for coal due to the use of gas in electricity generation.

Enjoy M

The Main gate in towards the colliery carparks



BHP Billington (point of ayr gas terminal) on the left walking down towards the site


The main Haulage tracks out of POA



Pykies have started to remove the tracks and pull them up most of the steel rail pins and clamps have gone and the rails are warped in this section



This was interesting as I thought it could be a shaft theres a steel pipe in the opposite side to me and has a flange cap on top (could be a breather of some sort but certainly unsure around 7" dia)



This is most certainly shaft number two (the big concrete one) it is massive and theres alot of concrete and steel here.



This could be shaft number three (theres that word again "could" ..it covers a multitude of sins)



Heres the end of the narrow guage rail for the trucks out of shaft number three.



One for the brick lovers.



Now then here an old pic of number one and number two head gear. Number one was taken down and the top was going to be used as a memorial to the miners in a local town ...im still waiting to know which town but it now resides in The Greenfield Valley heritage centre with a load of other stuff which could have come from POA but you experts will have to make your mind up on that one.





The remaining head gear in a sorry state and again with other bits and bobs.







Experts opinions welcome and thanks for looking. Cheers Marty