Around 1908 Oliver George Hartland set up his own business carrying out stonework and sinking mineshafts as collieries sprung up across the Ogmore Valley, in the quest to find coal to fuel homes and industries. Little did he know at the time that the family business would still be going in one guise or another four generations and more than a hundred years later.

Oliver George handed the business over to his son Charlie followed by his children, Gordon and Gwyn Hartland. By the 1970s and with the demise of mining, the business became a traditional builder’s and work centred around new house builds, renovations and refurbishments, along with local authority work and some private residential developments.