Ahh, Cwm Coke, the old urbex favourite...
Filthy, sprawling, and one of South Wales' premier days out for those predisposed to a bit of recreational trespass! (myself included!)
It'd been a while since I'd been on a proper exploring trip, so I thought why not have a nosey around a place that's just up the road to get back into the swing of things :)
and because I'm a massive nerd, I shot all of my photos on a mix of 35mm and medium format film.
For better or worse mind, but hey, I love the look and the challenge!
I really hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed putting it together, because there's some awesome shots in here!
The history
The Cwm Coking Works began operations in 1958, to supply foundry coke and other coal products to the bustling steel industries of South Wales. (including the long demolished East Moors Steelworks over my way!)
From it's opening, it processed coal from the attached Cwm Colliery into steelmaking coke, town gas, tar, and other useful chemicals.
These were then transported onwards to local industry by rail, feeding demand right across South Wales.
The attached Cwm Colliery closed in 1986, amidst the mass closure of many Welsh deep coal mines. However, the coke works survived under the new ownership of Coal Products Ltd (or CPL), which was initially a subsidiary of the nationalised British Coal, but later became a private company.
Production continued under CPL until 2002, when slumping demand and obsolete processes caused the works to be shuttered, ending 44 years of continuous production and making hundreds of local workers redundant.
The dormant works was partially demolished in 2020, leaving only parts of the once massive coking batteries remaining, as well as a smattering of other associated buildings.
If you'd like to read a more complete history of the works, I'd recommend Webbs0710's excellent 2024 report on 28dl, as it goes wayy more into detail than mine!
The visit
I visited along with my wife at the beginning of September 2025, during a brief spell of absolutely glorious weather. Nice and warm, almost no rain, and lovely blue skies - completely out of character for the valleys!
We hopped on a local bus bright and early from Cardiff, which conveniently stopped right outside the works. Sweet!
Did you know that Beddau is pronounced "bather" too, and not "beth-eye"?
Nor did I, until I was corrected by the bus driver 🙃
Arriving just after 8, we decided to first check out the remains of the rail yards, and the Green Bridge which used to carry a footpath over the yards.
I'd read that there was once a bird of prey keeping watch over the bridge, so for the best chance of spotting this mythical beast, we decided to go the long way around, scrambling through overgrown woodland and over long rusted out fences for the rail yard.
The bridge slowly appeared before us from the overgrowth, lit beautifully, sans bird.
However, I'd forgotten that I had the World's Mankiest Film loaded up in my Canon T70, some old Ferrania shite that looks like it was stored in the cellars of Chernobyl...
Certainly a vibe, but not the one I wanted here so do excuse the crustiness for these first couple of photos!
After poking around the bridge and avoiding the local youth bunking off school, we found ourselves behind the palisade fence and inside the works itself.
The wooded areas of the site turned out to be an absolute quagmire, even though it hadn't rained recently, so we were very glad of our boots and gaiters!
Before long though, we found our first interesting gubbin, a tank in the woods leading to the town gas production part of the site.
The Compressor House was used to export town gas to the local gas network, using an array of several large Donkin compressors.
It's certainly one hell of a first impression, with the light filtering through holes in the roof.
I spent more time gawping than photographing in here, but I did get a few decent shots! I'll have to go back for sure!
We then moseyed on to the power station, as I'd heard there was a lab underneath that was still fairly intact.
It's very wet and rotten in there, but I did get this shot of the analytical lab using only torchlight!
It's a shame this film stuck to itself during development, especially as it was my last roll of Pro400H, but the effect is kinda neat!
We then headed outside, and continued deeper into the site via the loading yard where finished coke was loaded onto rail wagons for transport.
The ruined loading tower here was a brilliant excuse for me to break out the Lomochrome Turquoise I'd been saving for this trip, which is a funky effects film with swapped colour channels.
and would you look at that!
Very apocalyptic, no filters needed! Sweeet!
We continued wandering down the road at the back of the site, sitting down to have a sandwich about halfway as security was nowhere to be seen and we were starving.
Of course, I took the opportunity to use the rest of the Turquoise on the charge tower for the coke ovens!
Imposing!
With sandwiches scoffed, we spotted a gap in the walls of the coke oven batteries and made our way inside.
The ovens themselves were demolished in 2020, leaving only the buildings that used to support them.
Long corridors stretch out on either side of the charge tower, ending with the site's two huge chimneys.
The lighting in here was fantastic too, with the rust giving everything a lovely warm glow :)
Each of these pots would have been connected to a coke oven above it, but only these remain now.
Some are so rusty that just touching them caused them to crumble to dust!
Under the tower sits a maintenance area, full of pipes and delicious asbestos.
Look at those lamps though!
After this shot, I started to notice how bad the steel beams holding up the roof were looking, so we made a swift exit and headed on to the silos at the opposite end of the site.
At this point the few remaining clouds had cleared, and the sky was gloriously blue!
These four silos would have been used to store coal prior to processing elsewhere on the site.
Inside them is (unsurprisingly) covered in coal dust, and full of machinery including these bunker vibrators 😜
*giggle*
Looking out...
Ah! That's why it's so dark in here!
The meter's run out!
The small building next door contained the control panels for the silo machinery, which look fantastic!
Across the way there's a few other buildings.
I forget which ones these photos came from, but here's some more control panel porn...
The rust and decay on these is lush!
It also seems a few people have signed their names here over the years, hello!
I sure am glad this buddleia wasn't switched to automatic, who knows what could have happened!
Moving on from the silos, we headed into the maintenance workshops at the far end of the site.
Apologies for the crusty film again, this time it's Harman Phoenix which needs MUCH more light than I had available. Oopsie!
The amount of machine tools left in here is staggering, but that's par for the course for these kind of places...
The level of decay in here was fantastic, it was as if everyone just walked out!
Moving on to the back of the workshops, we found a collapsing mezzanine level above the shop offices used for storage.
so naturally I climbed up there!
That shot's a bit blurry, as the floor I was stood on started to bend beneath me just as I hit the shutter!
Ooer!
Some gantry cranes are still in situ here too, slowly rusting away.
It was here I had another film mishap, loading up the T70 with some Kodak Hawkeye 2485 surveillance film, intended for (and harvested from) a speed camera.
I misread the ISO, and set my camera for 2000 instead of 200, woops!
Thankfully, the magical powers of pushing the shit out of it in Rodinal got me a few salvageable shots!
Grain-tastic!
Talk about chain emails!
The desks were scattered with various papers and manuals too
After having our fill of the workshops, we wandered over to some small buildings, next to the works' benzole scrubbers and their collapsed wooden cooling towers.
The piping in here had some phenomenal corrosion, just look at those colours!
Unfortunately the cooling towers were in a BAD way despite their listed status, seen here through the Heras fencing that surrounds them.
It was at this point that we heard dogs barking close to us and shouts from the security guard, so we hid out in the valve house out of view for around 15 minutes.
I think there were other explorers on site that day who weren't as stealthy as us, and they must have been kicked out at least four times!
While hiding though, I did manage to get these excellently lit shots of some electrical gubbins in the valve house!
also, here's the no.1 east cooling tower shot through the trees, while checking to see if the coast was clear
After Mr. Security Man and his poochie had buggered off, we looped around to check out the other side of the coke batteries and their charge tower.
but before that, here's a gratuitous shot of some graff, reflecting off the water.
Niice!
Beneath the charge tower is a complex of maintenance bays and offices, all beautifully decayed with excellent lighting!
A gubbin, and more 10/10 peelies...
Heading deeper into the belly of the beast, we found the infamous whiteboard showing the last day of operation - 26-6-2002.
It looks like someone's re-written the whiteboard at some point, which is interesting to see!
We then moved on to see some storage tanks behind the benzole scrubber towers, which were even more interesting.
Look at the little annotations written on the side!
The general atmosphere here was pretty great too, with the overgrowth slowly consuming the giant machinery.
Unfortunately the actual atmosphere here stunk of benzene, so we moved quickly on to avoid getting mega-cancer.
Part of this equipment had been torn away during demolition, leaving this dangling piping somewhat reminiscent of an elephant's trunk.
I believe that this was used for separating coal tar and other chemicals from the coke oven gases.
Next we're on to the towering benzole scrubber towers, reminding me of similar ones I'd seen during a nosey around Redcar's ICI/Wilton International site a few years back.
The scale of these things is monstrous, and I thought the piping feeding them had a certain beauty to it...
Maybe that was just the fumes getting to me though...
We had a quick peek in the old medical centre / fire station too, where a scrap of an old firefighter's jacket laid torn on the floor.
The rest of the place seemed pretty stripped, but there were some nice peelies!
The lighting was somewhat pushing the limit of my ISO 100 film here though, so welcome back the crust...
At this point it was past 6pm, and we'd been roaming around the place for nearly 10 hours without meeting security once!
We were beyond knackered by now, and I couldn't really be arsed scrambling back under a fence and getting covered in more anti-climb paint. (which it turns out, you can remove with baby wipes!)
So we decided to sod being stealthy, and loudly mosey around to some storage tanks nearby hoping that Mr. Security Man would hear and let us out the easy way.
I snapped this photo, and as if by magic he appeared!
No 'good afternoon' or any pleasantries, just a loud "OUT!" to which I responded with "busted, fair play mate".
Result!
He wanted us to show him where we came in, but we pled tiredness and vaguely gestured to the wrong side of the site.
He just wanted to go home, and so did we.
Ended up waltzing out of the side gate and down the access road, albeit followed shortly after by him in his car.
It was also at this point that I spotted a really easy (but very sketchy) way in, ah well!
The sign by the main entrance also seemed remarkably intact, considering the place has been closed for over 20 years!
We sat down at the bus stop, exchanged a fist bump, and relaxed after an explore well done.
A certified Top Tier Day Out!
I was so knackered that I didn't even care that the local kids were unloading a gel blaster into the back of my head whilst waiting for the bus home 🤣
I hope you've enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed making it!
I'll have another one of these up at some point too, as there's more explores on the cards now :)
but until then, cheers for having me, and I'll see you next time!
B-B-B-B-BONUS ROUND!!
I had some photos left on the editing table after posting this to 28dl, so here's a couple more neat ones that didn't quite make the cut!
First, a rusting fuseboard in (I thiiink) the valve house
and, a 35mm colour version of Labyrinthine!
I thought this worked much better in crispy B&W, but you may prefer this version!
I've put which camera/lens/film I used in each caption for the nerds :)
Also, this is the first outing (on this site) of my shiny new Nikon Coolscan 8000, so enjoy the lovely crisp scans!
