Coal came before terracotta in Ruabon's industrial story. By 1854, some 26 mines were operating on the western side of the district, spread across Ruabon, Rhos, Acrefair, Brymbo and Broughton — part of the wider Wrexham and Denbighshire coalfield that also included larger collieries such as Bersham, a short distance to the north.
The coal industry dipped in the early 19th century before recovering strongly with the age of steam, as local coal fuelled steamships and railway locomotives alongside gasworks and domestic heating — demand that grew directly alongside the railway network described in Getting to Ruabon. Like the wider British coalfield in this period, the industry's early decades relied in part on child labour, before 19th-century reforms gradually restricted it.
Coal and clay were often worked from the same ground: many of the collieries around Ruabon operated alongside the clay pits that fed the terracotta industry, and coal itself was essential to firing the kilns at works like J. C. Edwards'. The two industries rose and declined together across the late 19th and 20th centuries as North Wales' coalfield gradually contracted.
Little of the original colliery infrastructure survives around Ruabon itself, though engine houses and other remains can still be seen at some former coalfield sites in the wider district, such as Bersham. Wrexham's local archives and the People's Collection Wales hold photographs and records of the mines, free to search online.
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