The Point of Ayr Colliery Company was established in 1883 located close to the villages of Ffynnongroyw and Mostyn in Flintshire on the coast of the Dee Estuary, North Wales. The predominant language at the colliery was Welsh through to the 1930s.

In 1888, Edward Hughes (1856-1925) from Berthengam led a successful strike at the colliery and soon after established a lodge of the Denbighshire and Flintshire Miners’ Association. The predominant language at the colliery was Welsh through to the 1930s. In the aftermath of the General Strike of 1926 a number of miners were victimised. Throughout the 1930s there were serious divisions at the colliery between members of the North Wales Miners Association and the company backed Point of Ayr Industrial Union. The workforce became unified under the North Wales Area of the National Union of Mineworkers when the coal industry was nationalised in 1947. 

On the eve of nationalisation it was the only colliery in Flintshire and one of eight that remained in North Wales. With mechanisation and modernisation it soon began to break production records.

Point of Ayr Pit

From the 1950s the local workforce was complemented by miners from England, Ireland, Poland, Germany, Spain and the Caribbean. The Rhyl and Prestatyn Gazette now described the pit ‘with its 150 Joneses, its Germans, among the 600 labour force … as the happy colliery’.The colliery had its own brass band, welfare club and sports teams.

On 4 July 1952, six men were killed and others injured when working on developing a new shaft. In 1968 around thirty miners moved to Point of Ayr after the closure of Bradford and Mosley Common collieries close to Manchester. The Rhyl and Prestatyn Gazette now described the pit ‘with its 150 Joneses, its Germans, among the 600 labour force … as the happy colliery’. After the miners’ strike of 1974, Point of Ayr along with Bersham Colliery near Wrexham was one of only two pits left in North Wales. In 1982 miners from the recently closed Hapton Valley Colliery near Burnley joined the workforce.

In the dispute against pit closures in 1984/5 the majority of the 600 miners continued to work with around 83 remaining on strike for twelve months. In 1986 some miners from the closed Bersham Colliery moved to the pit, but between 1986-1992 the number of workers was cut to 494.

Point of Ayr Women's Support Group

The colliery avoided closure in the ‘coal crisis’ of 1992 and was privatised in 1994. Under the ownership of RJB Mining it moved away from long-wall coal extraction and developed American methods using shuttle cars and roof bolting. Point of Ayr ceased production in the summer of 1996.

This profile was written towards the beginning of our project, further material about Point of Ayr colliery is available at our exhibtion website.