# CWM Coke Works - Beddau (Wales June 2016 1/9)



## ReverendJT (Jun 28, 2016)

The first of 9 sites we visited on our Welsh adventure.

Cwm Coke's origins lie with the Great Western Railway and it's insatiable hunger for coal. The GWR sunk pits at the Cwm site in 1909 as well as in other areas of the Rhondda, but Cwm didn't become known for it's coke until 1958 when the coking ovens and associated plant for producing coke and refining the by-products of the coking process were installed. During this time the existing colliery site saw a £9 million investment, by the 1970's the two pits 'Margaret' and 'Mildred' and the coking plant were the workplace of 1,500 men this combined effort produced 515,000 tons of coke per annum. The colliery continued production of coal right up until privatisation of the National Coal Board in 1986.

The coking plant remained in use until 2002 producing the low sulphur coke that the foundries of Port Talbot required.

*Explore*

This was the first site on a long, long list of potential explores across Wales that we planned to do over the weekend. Due to unforeseen automotive issues we ended up with 4 of us (Myself, BigDirk, Pringle and Piffblazer) plus camping gear in my car which made for a cosy weekend! Due to having to wait for Piffblazer to finish work and the subsequent traffic nightmares associated with Friday rush hour, we arrived later than expected and had to cross a couple of sites off (you know how these schedules slip!). but finally we were here and still had a little light left! Here are a couple of pictures from the climb on up to the pulveriser I took that night:














Next, we headed off to The Rest Hotel in Porthcawl, where we planned to stay the night, however it turns out it has been put back into use, so we found a nearby spot to camp before the inevitable re-visit to CWM in the morning.






Here are the pictures from the morning.






15 year old newspaper.







































































































































Foolishly, in my early morning stupor I absent mindedly said Good Morning to the chap in the last image here, which was met with “You know you shouldn’t be there?” “Look out for the Security Dogs” and “I’ll tell them you’re in there when I see them”. It was time to go anyway as we were well behind schedule, so we made our escape and moved onto the next site, Tweed Mills


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## krela (Jun 28, 2016)

I'll always have a soft spot for this place, thanks for posting.


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## King Al (Jun 28, 2016)

Industrial beauty! Good stuff Reverend


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## mookster (Jun 28, 2016)

One of my industrial favourites, nothing like it


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## bigdirk (Jun 28, 2016)

Loving the photos mate! Was worth waiting about for you 

Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk


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## SlimJim (Jun 28, 2016)

Impressive  Tis the season for derp camp outs!


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## ReverendJT (Jun 28, 2016)

bigdirk said:


> Loving the photos mate! Was worth waiting about for you &#55357;&#56860;
> 
> Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk



Always Dirkus


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## Brewtal (Jun 28, 2016)

I've never been here but I always love it when it pops up! Cracking pics! Captured so well!


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## Conrad (Jun 28, 2016)

Always cool to see a nice bit of industry, your shots from the pulveriser climb look good in the light.


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## Mikeymutt (Jun 28, 2016)

Lovely stuff.it's a place I want to go too.but don't think I will be heading wales this year now.be doing more northern stuff


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## HughieD (Jun 28, 2016)

That's some heavy industrial stuff there. Great set.


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## night crawler (Jun 29, 2016)

Very nice explore and great photos


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## flyboys90 (Jun 30, 2016)

Well captured you got some cracking shots here.


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## UrbanX (Jul 7, 2016)

Beautiful take on a well photographed place!


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