Penrikyber Navigation was first sunk in 1872. Bought by the Cory Brothers in 1890, the pit had nearly 1500 employees by the end of the nineteenth century. At its peak in the 1920s, the colliery employed over 2,000 men and was producing 350,000 tons of coal a year. Bought by the Powell Duffyn Company in 1943, the pit began to decline before being modernised in the early 1960s by the National Coal Board. With a much smaller workforce (around 800) the yield from the up-to-date underground workings stood at arond 250,000 tons and the colliery was able to survive the pit closure programme of the 1960s and 1970s. Penrikyber was closed on 8 October 1985 in the wake of the strike of 1984-1985 and the land reclaimed in the 1990s for a small playground and playing fields for rugby and soccer.

Daryl Leeworthy, RCAHMW, 30 January 2012.