Resolven Colliery (James Witton Lyon Esq.) located in Cwm Clydach, Resolven, was opened in 1840. It had land and a tramroad (NPRN 407081) to the Neath Canal by 1843. The later history of the colliery, which created the mining community of Resolven, is documented as far as 1925 by D.Rhys Phillips, History of the Vale of Neath, pp.255-6, and by Gerwyn Thomas, Neath and District: a Symposium', pp.185-6, to 1963.
The coal level opening was almost at stream level, the tramroad on a gentle incline to the Cwm mouth. The colliery stable was once two farm buildings, part of Tanrhiw Farm, absorbed into Glyncastell Farm by 1840. The two buildings were joined after 1842 to create the stable. Lyons Place, Resolven, is a terrace of 18 workers' dwellings built by J.W.Lyon, passed on to successive owners and finally to the NCB which sold the houses to tennants. The terrace appears on the Tithe map of 1842 but not on an estate map of Glyncastell Farm dated 1840.
The last of the Cwm Clydach levels, Glyncastle Colliery, closed in 1963.
The National Grid Reference quoted is the terminus of the tramroad shown on the OS six-inch map, the presumed location of the original coal level.

Abstracted from notes by Harry Green, Resolven, dated 1977 (NMRW file)

RCAHMW, 30 January 2008