Mining started at Genwen Colliery in 1766 when the colliery was founded by Chauncey Townsend. The Boulton and Watt steam engine house was built by George Warde in 1806 on the site of an earlier Newcomen engine house. The colliery fell out of use from the mid-1820s until in 1937 the Llanelly Copperworks Company installed a new engine and deepened the pit. They continued to work it till 1907 when an explosion caused the steam to ignite. When pumping ceased in 1908 the colliery was flooded out. A level entrance of the 1830s is just to the west.

Sources:
Collieries of Wales, RCAHMW
A Guide to the Industrial Archaeology of the Swansea Region, by Stephen Hughes and Paul Reynolds, AIA, 1989

Claire Parry, RCAHMW, 24 August 2011