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Llanelli's famous Stacks

From the time industrialists started smelting ore, chimney stacks were needed to carry away the fumes and smoke. In the early days the chimneys would have been small compared with the stacks that dominated the skyline in the 19th century. Industrial Llanelli had many stacks but three of the earliest that were connected with the Copperworks are probably the best remembered.

1830 Cambrian Copperworks Stack

The Glascott family established a copperworks in 1830 which was taken over by the English Copperworks Co. in 1839 and about this time a square stack was built. The Cambrian Copperworks Company as it was known lay idle for eight years before Richard Janion Nevill of the Llanelly Copperworks Company converted the disused buildings into a lead and silver works.

The stack was built alongside the Carmarthenshire Dock, square shaped and reached a height of 231 feet. It was not only a landmark but it was also a seamark for mariners approaching Llanelli Port.

1898 In later years the stack became the property of the Metal Tinplate & Stamping Co. when it relocated to the disused lead and silver works in 1898.

Sometime after the Stamping Company owned the stack about 70 feet was taken from the top.

Following the closure of the metal works the stack became the property of J & P Zammit the firm that had been involved, more than any other, in the dismantling of the many stacks following the closure of so many works.

The chimney was surrounded by buildings on one side and a road on the other so demolition had to be done carefully. Four workers belonging to Zammit’s worked with picks and a pneumatic hammer taking the tall stack down brick by brick.

1838 Copperworks Square Stack

When Richard Janion Nevill was managing director of the Llanelly Copperworks operating as Daniell, Nevill & Company, he commissioned a stack to be built to carry pollution from the Copperworks away from the surrounding houses. The square shaped stack was 272 ft high and built alongside the dock at a cost of £2,300.

1860 Stac Fawr (Large Stack)

Always aware of the effect their works had on the environment, in 1860 and 1861 the Copperworks Company commissioned the building of a second stack which was tall and circular. John Bowen, the Works engineer, supervised the construction of the chimney which soared to over 300 ft and was designed to take the fumes over the top of Bigyn Hill. It is not known for sure exactly how high the original stack was because one source believes it was 320 ft whilst the another says it was 363 ft. What is certain is that the stack was the highest of its kind built in the United Kingdom.

The massive chimney was designed with two long and large horizontal flues, which carried the smoke from the furnaces. When the wind was in a certain direction the smoke (which consisted of mainly sulphur, carbon oxides, nitrogen and dust) would belch from the top in two plumes.

The foundation stone work was 80 ft deep; diameter at the base was 33 ft, and at the top was 11 ft 4 in. The bottom wall was 42 in thick and the top wall 14 in. Special wedge-shaped, 24 in x 14 in x 11 in wide bricks were used for the cap, which weighed 27 tons.

The structure cost about £2,500 and 775,000 bricks were used during its construction.

Early in the 20th century, Nevill Druce & Company decided to reduce the height of the circular stack by about 40 feet, because cracks had appeared at the top of the chimney.

1927 In the summer of 1927 the height of the stack was reduced by steeplejacks under the direction of Jack Zammit following the closure of the Copperworks.

1966 J & P Zammit completed the demolition of the famous Copperworks stack known as Stac Fawr. Because Stac Fawr was surrounded by buildings it could not be demolished ‘in one lump’ and had to be dismantled brick by brick from the top which took about six weeks. At the time not all of the stack was cleared and the massive foundations were left with about 12 ft of the stack. Over the passage of time the remnants had disappeared under bushes and weeds that had pushed through the rubble. As workers cleared the site, just inside the main works entrance, ready for the New Dock police station and houses, the foundations of the old stack appeared one more time.

The huge stone slabs in the base, which had a circumference of 99 ft, would not have looked out of place in the Coliseum or any other Roman forum.

Under the foundations were deep caverns, which were the openings to flues, which had originally connected to the copper refineries. The flues to the south and east of the stack extended for about 200 yards but the other two, which went north in the direction of the railway station and east towards New Dock Road were only channelled a few yards. It may have been that extension to the works were planned but never materialised.

The original flues were much smaller but following alterations in the industrial expansion of the 1870s the size of the flues was increased and they looked more like culverts. These culverts were between 10 and 12 ft deep, large enough for workmen to be able to pass each other.

The different departments of the Copperworks had been known as Ty Newydd (New House), Ty Croes (Cross House) and Ty West (West House) all had culverts leading to Stac Fawr and to the smaller stack near the dock. The refinery departments had their own culverts running into their own stacks, with the exception of the one known as the ‘North’ refinery whose culvert ran to Stac Fawr.

The refineries known as the ‘Bell’ and ‘Finer Newydd’ and two others had chimneys of their own.

Usually, during stocktaking, which was once a year, the big culverts were cleaned out and the valuable deposits were carted away to the smelting departments to be melted down. This work ensured that the men, who would have been unemployed during stocktaking, were able to continue working.

The young lads of Glanymor were able to have fun exploring the culverts probably imaging they were in the catacombs of Rome as they peered into the depths of the winding passages.

There have been many stories about Stac Fawr over the years and early records refer to ‘a great to-do’ in 1879 when a lightening conductor of sheet copper (rolled in the Nevill mills), was placed on top. At first, attempts were made to place a rope over the stack by flying a kite but this idea had to be abandoned. Eventually experts were brought in from Huddersfield who used ladders, each one supporting the one above it. The momentous climb started on Friday and by Saturday the two men had reached the cornice (cap), finally reaching the top by Monday. These two men from Huddersfield were the first to climb the stack since 1862.