Dowlais Pit 6
Pit number six is located at the edge of the Box-Cut area and consists of a pit/mine shaft and a smaller air shaft. This pit was used in the mining of ironstone in the 19th Century, but seems to have been disused by 1901 according to the 2nd edition OS map. GGAT implemented an extensive evaluation in the area around Ironstone Pit No.6, with completely negative results except for an unstratisfied but well-preserved cast-iron tramroad tie-bar sleeper. To the east of the mineshaft is the pit’s airshaft, a small circular airshaft of coursed sandstone with a yellow-brick lining.
To the north of the pit a small dam (Plate 11) was excavated revealing a fine herringbone stone finish to the feature. A section was placed through the dam, which exposed a complex stratigraphy indicative of being hand built. Inside the base of the dam a bogey cart wheel and leather shoe were recovered from alluvial silts. Outside of the pond was the remains of a small brick valve house, which would have regulated the water flow from the pond.
To the north of Ironstone Pit No.6, GGAT has recorded a small circular yellow-brick culvert was recorded beneath the course of the old Dowlais Iron Co. Tramroad. To the west of this feature the early-Industrial Crown Patch workings extend around the ‘crown’ of the mountain (Plate 12). The vegetation from this area has been cleared for survey and three patchworks have been excavated revealing, in one case, a substantial level into the mountainside (Plate 13). The patchwork was very narrow, room enough for one person to squeeze through, and followed the ironstone deposits back (north) into the mountain. A large coal seam was encountered but the original miners appear to have ignored this and sunk their Level through to underlying ironstone deposits over 4m below the present ground surface.
There appear to be many tramroads in this area, presumably to transport the ironstone and coal. Next to pit number six is a tramroad park, though very little remains, except several small parallel banks. There have been a number of interesting finds associated with the tramroad including tie bar sleepers, wheels, cart connectors and tramroad pegs.