Llanhilleth Pithead Baths

An Eyesore or a Heritage Building ?

Feelings run deep !

Rear (but most interesting) elevation

Situated on a horseshoe bend in Llanhilleth village lies an abandoned redbrick building. Although purchased a few years ago with high hopes, its only regular inhabitants now are the buddleia bushes which sprout through any available gap. Its surrounds are used as an overflow car park for any event taking place in the very narrow streets; a funeral at the Zion, a wedding at the Llanhilleth Hotel, (known as the Top Hotel, as its at the top of a hill.)

side view

Welcomed in 1944

But in 1944 this building was welcomed with open arms by the majority of the community. These unassuming buildings, built at pitheads all over the UK, mostly between 1920s and 1950s, improved the health of mining families at a stroke.

Every day women had had back-breaking work, carrying bucket after bucket of cold water from the outside pump, or later the kitchen tap, to boil on an open coal fire, kept alight by carrying bucket after bucket of coal from the cwch on the backyard.This coal had already been carried bucket after bucket from the back lane or the road in front of the terraced house into the coal cwch. This heavy work resulted in premature births, and miscarriages ensuring the lifespan of women (around 40 years,) at this time was even shorter than that of their husbands risking life and limb down the pit. These pithead baths also reduced the number fo women and children receiving scalds and burns, whilst the boiling water was transferred from the hob to the tin bath.

Prior to these baths, the men would walk from the Pit at Llanhilleth,Navigation in Crumlin, or even across the mountain from Abersychan, and arrive home dirty, dusty, sometimes wet or in winter, possibly with icicles on their clothes.Washing and drying such clothes without a washing machine was not an easy task.Meals were cooked on the coal fire or in the fireside oven, and all this while children played underfoot.

side view

Someone loved this building

Towy Berrow was the superintendent of the new building and remained in position until all the miners had gone and the building was handed over to the Contractors in 1969. Scrupulously clean, he spent hours scrubbing and washing the white tiles, even when it was to close. “It was brand new and clean when I took it over and it will be as new as I can make it when I hand it back.”

Towy, as related by his son Tony, was an officer of the St Johns Ambulance, from when the baths opened in 1940s until the pit closed in 1969, when he retired.Sadly the baths quickly fell into ruin.In February 2008 it was announced that“the eyesore was to be demolished.”Plans had been approved to build housing on the site.Four years on and this has yet to be carried out.



Roadside view overlooked by terraced housing

How the Pithead Baths came about

Through the Conference of the Women’s Labour League in 1914,Women’s Co-operative Soc. and Women’s Welfare Groups there was demand for pithead baths.   These groups argued women’s work in the home was as essential to the coal industry as the miners work in the pit.   Coping with large families and over-crowding, they also needed to heat quantities of water on coal fires for the men to bathe with no bathroom, wash their clothes by hand, and clear up the coal dust.   Women were determined.   Pithead Baths  would make a big different to their lives.

The Miners themselves, reluctant to change, questioned who would pay for the baths.   (As with most things, they would, by compulsory contributions from their pay.)   Would they accommodate all the employees?   

roadside view (on horseshoe bend)

After WW1, Elizabeth Andrews and the Women’s Section of the Labour Party in Wales recommenced the fight for the baths.   She had left school aged 12 and became a suffragette.  

In 1919 she was asked to give a speech before Parliament.    Although pithead baths became compulsory during 1924 it took more than thirty years for every miner to have access to this facility.

When, the first baths were opened, some miners were reluctant to use them.   There was mis-information that they would have to stand naked and be hosed down.   They believed that bathing and then going outside to walk home would ensure they caught a cold.   It would cause problems with their spinal chord and weaken them generally.   A miners health was always his priority as illness meant no wages.  

The Mining Industry Act of 1920 imposed a levy of 1d. per ton of coal raised, on coal owners.   Administered by the Miners Welfare Commission.   It provided amenities such as Pit Head Baths, Welfare Halls, and scholarships.   It also provided grants and maintenance costs for Institutes.   In 1952 the cash and investments of the Welfare Commission were transferred to the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation.

By this time, seven out of ten men had access to pithead baths, leaving three out of ten still having to wash at home!    Once their trepidations and shyness had been overcome, true to their chapel roots, the men would often sing hymns and take turns to wash each others’ backs, as well as play pranks and sort out disputes.   Vaseline was commonly used to clean the delicate area around the eyes, and they possibly received a ‘soap and towel’ allowance in their wages for use at the pithead baths.

from facebook "Old Pontypool"

Another Problem was envisaged

Clean men in clean clothes returning from work, no longer contaminated their home with coal dust, dirty wet clothing and, some say, the black bats (cockroaches), which were so common in coal miners’ cottages.  BUT, then came the realisation and fear for wives that their clean men had no reason to go straight home from work.   These baths could become a bad moral influence.    Leaving work clean, smart and ‘tidy,’ men could go to the pub. That was another problem entirely !   Feelings run deep on this issue also...

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/suffragettes.htm

http://www.healeyhero.co.uk/rescue/Collection/jl/Pithead-Baths.htm