Colliery Memorial Traditional Cache

Wattstown  named after Edmund Hannay Watts, who at one time owned the National Colliery in Wattstown,  is located in the Rhondda Fach valley and is a district of the community of Ynyshir. Prior to mid 19th century industrialisation the area was once little more than a wooded area, sparsely populated by farmsteads. With the coming of the coal industry Wattstown became a busy, densely populated village, but with the closure of the collieries Wattstown suffered an economic down turn that still affects the village today. The Colliery, originally known as Cwtch Colliery in the late 1870s before being renamed the Standard; suffered two disasters (Feb 1887 and July 1905) and this memorial remembers the latter.