After this explosion the workmen came together and discussed how to protect themselves from further deaths. They decided to hold prayer meetings underground before starting work. They approached the colliery management who were enthusiastic about the idea and allowed them to construct a chapel in the workings.

After they had constructed the chapel in the Five Feet Seam, they bought the first Bible which was carried underground and used in the first meeting at half past six on the morning of the 18th August 1845. After this a meeting was held every Monday morning.

By 1859 a new Bible was purchased as the original was by now falling apart due to the dampness of the workings. The new Bible was kept in a box in the engine room near the chapel to help keep it in better condition. However, on one occasion, the ‘preacher’ got over excited and banged his fist down on the Bible and broke the binding scattering the pages over the floor of the chapel. A new Bible was presented by a visiting Scottish medical man, Dr McRitchie, in 1899. In the same year a Journalist from the Sunday magazine visited the colliery and described the underground chapel:

"The coal has been worked out of the seam to the left (of the roadway) till a chamber about 16 yards long by 6 yards wide has been formed. The walls are formed, in parts, of small rough pine logs, through which the splendid thick coal seam out crops to the view, here and there. The roof is somewhat menacingly close overhead, but it is of hard, smooth clift and has been whitened with lime, so it looks like an artificial ceiling. As you enter you observe that the chapel is timbered with pit props on either side, and furnished with rude plank seats placed at equidistance between the props."

There was room for a congregation of around a hundred and a high wooden desk formed a pulpit. The colliery was deemed to be ‘gas free’ and lighted candles were arranged around the chapel for illumination.

In 2019 the last Bible used in the underground chapel was donated to Big Pit. This Bible was purchased in 1904 and contains the following inscription:

‘To the prayer meeting service held in the Five Foot (seam) at Mynydd Newydd Colliery every Monday morning when the works is working. This work commenced on 28th November 1904. Dated August 9th 1915.’

In 1924, after the colliery changed owners and closed down for a short while, a Prayer Meeting Festival was held. A programme for the event was printed with the title:

‘A list of Hymns for the Preaching Festival Service Mynydd Newydd Colliery To celebrate 80 years of Prayer Meetings Underground.’

It would be interesting to find out if any of these programmes still exist.

In 1929 the Radio Times carried an article on the underground chapel and an underground service was broadcast by the BBC on Sunday October 13th.

Mynydd Newydd Colliery closed temporarily in 1932 but re-opened by the Mynydd Newydd Colliery Company in 1935 when it employed 76 men. The colliery was finally closed by the National Coal Board in 1955.

The donor’s grandfather, worked in the colliery and when it was closing he went down to the chapel to look for the Bible. There had also been a hymn book but only the Bible was still there which he brought out of the pit. His son, John Moelwyn Thomas who worked in Garn Goch Colliery, inherited the old Bible and took it around Miners’ Galas and other events.

This important piece of Welsh social and industrial history was donated to Big Pit by the Thomas family in 2019. This particular Bible is the 1904 one, and the last one to be used in Mynydd Newydd. Strangely enough, a different Bible was pictured in the National Museum’s publication ‘Welsh Coal Mines’ (now out of print) and captioned as the Bible used underground. However, that particular Bible is not the same as the one the Museum now holds so may have been an earlier one. If that is the case, there must be another Mynydd Newydd Bible still in private hands.

Lloyd George’s poetic idea

On 29 September 1914 the Welsh National Executive Committee was formed to recruit a Welsh Army Corps of 40,000 to 50,000 men. The recruitment was based on the Corps's unique Welshness, with the encouragement of Welsh-speaking officers and Welsh-language recruitment posters.

Even though we refresh parts of the museum periodically there are many objects which never make it to the display stage. Why do you collect them then? I hear you ask. There are many reasons why something might not be on display. Curators collect things that are important to our heritage and very often these things are in poor condition, so an artefact might need a lot of expensive conservation work before it can be presented to the public. When we collect objects our first priority is to preserve them and stop any deterioration to their condition. Restoration for exhibitions or display takes a back seat until finance can be found for projects – especially large objects like cars and buses. In the Industry Collection of the National Museum of Wales there are many different forms of transport and each one has to have a strong connection to Wales – by manufacture, inventor or usage. The ones not on display are kept at Nantgarw, near Cardiff, until their turn comes.

From helicopters to horse-drawn hearses and electric cars to steam rollers, the National Collection Centre in Nantgarw sometimes resembles a child’s toy box – but on a grand scale!

Delicate objects are stored in acid-free boxes or specially made crates, but how do you store a bus or helicopter? Of course they can’t be kept in boxes, but are lined up like a supermarket car park and are arranged quite randomly as size and shape dictate. There is access to the stores for group visits by appointment, where you will see that some of the vehicles look quite dilapidated whilst they await the magic touch of our conservation team.

Meanwhile, back at the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea one can still see quite a variety of transportation and in our Networks Gallery is the story of transport links in Wales. This gallery has a host of models of vehicles of all kinds and large digital displays of how the transport networks have grown – from sheep drovers’ pathways to the M4.

Just outside ‘Networks’ can be found a ‘sociable tricycle’ from the 1880s and a Benz ‘Duc’ motorcar first registered in Monmouthshire in 1904.

The sociable was exactly that with a side-by-side arrangement of seats and was a special favourite of courting couples! The Benz was owned by a Dr Cropper of Chepstow who kept it until 1910 when he donated it to the Science Museum. It was taken into the care of the National Museum of Wales in 1911 and once fully restored took part in a number of London-to-Brighton rallies.

Hanging overhead is one of the star attractions of the museum. The ‘Robin Goch’ or ‘Red Robin’ has a strong claim to be the first aeroplane to fly in Wales. It was built by Charles Horace Watkins, an amateur airman, around 1908. I has a wooden structure braced with piano wire. The cockpit looks distinctly home-made, including a kitchen chair for the pilot’s seat and simple household objects for instruments. Indeed, Charles navigated by using an egg timer – he would turn the timer over, fly straight ahead until the sand ran out then turn 90 degrees and fly ahead again and repeat the turn twice more so that he ended up back where he started! To help him judge his height when landing two pieces of weighted string one 20’ and one 10’ long were hung on the underside so when the first weight touched ground he knew he was at 20’ and when the second at 10’.

Not everything in this section is over one hundred years old. You’ll find two examples of the Sinclair C5, one for display and one for use by the public to sit in and get the feel for it. On high days and holidays (and weather permitting) this model is used in our garden and any visitor can try it out. The C5 is pedal-powered with battery backup for hills or if the driver became tired. With a top speed of around 15 mph the C5 was produced secretly in 1985 at the Merthyr Hoover factory. It was so secret that a tunnel was built under the road between the factories to keep prying eyes from discovering the design. Different component manufacturers only saw their plans, not the whole car. It was launched with wide public expectation but proved a flop as it was deemed too small to be safely driven in heavy traffic. A brilliant concept and years ahead of its time, it might yet make a comeback one day when cycle paths are more widespread

We have many vehicles brought in for temporary exhibitions and displays. In recent years these have included a caravan and a number of boats and quite a few concept electric vehicles, but one of my favourite vehicles is actually a child’s toy car.

In our ‘Made in Wales’ Gallery is the Austin J40, a blue pedal car made in Bargoed in 1959. In 1947 Parliament passed an act that recognised that many miners who were suffering from pneumoconiosis (coal dust in the lungs) could no longer work underground. So it was proposed that new factories be set up to provide lighter cleaner work to employ these men. The Austin factory at Bargoed was just one of these.

The factory, which opened in 1949, stopped making the little cars in 1971 but between those dates about 36,700 were produced!

All the museums in the Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales family have free entry. Visiting to the National Collections Centre in Nantgarw is by appointment only; contact them on (029) 2057 3560 for availability.