Coal Mining

The disused winding engine house at Hemingfield Colliery once contained a beam winding engine dating from c1842. Inside the cast iron support for the beam and associated bearing mounts remain, along with the spring beam. The drive would have passed through the wall to the right to the rope drum. The arc of stonework marks the blocked hole for this.

One of two electric winders at Hemingfield Colliery. This was used for shaft access in conjunction with pump maintenance.

Hemingfield or Elsecar Low Colliery was sunk circa 1842-3 for Earl Fitzwilliam to work the Barnsley Bed Coal Seam at a depth of about 117 yards. By 1846 production had reached some 1000 tons per day. After the mine finally closed for winding coal in 1920 one of the shafts continued to be used as a water pumping station. Since then the original headgears have been replaced by concrete structures. This is the headgear on the upcast shaft.

Lady Victoria Colliery at Newtongrange. The ropes may still be on the sheaves but there will be no more coal wound here.

Receipt for burnt lime from the limekilns at Hardingswood adjacent to the Trent & Mersey Canal at Kidsgrove. Thomas Kinnersly was the founder of the Birchenwood Ironworks in 1833 and had inherited a range of industrial concerns, including a number of collieries,and the family bank at Newcastle-under-Lyne from his father Thomas senior. His limeworks supplied lime to farms and estates as far away as Eaton near Congleton. His three kilns were situated at Hardingswood, just below the top lock on the offside.

Lady Victoria Colliery at Newtongrange is now the Scottish National Mining Museum. The colliery was sunk by the Lothian Coal Company in 1890 and came into production in 1894. It was closed in 1981.

Shaft indicator and governor remains on one of the winding engines at Hemingfield Colliery.

Ansley Hall Colliery opened in 1878 and soon after the Ansley Hall Coal & Iron Co. Ltd was founded. The pit closed in 1959 and since then the pithead baths buildings have been in industrial use. This is one of the entrances to this 1930s building.

Wynnstay Colliery was sunk by the New British Iron Company starting in 1856.By 1896 the ownership lay with Wynnstay Collieries Co. Ltd., Ruabon, and this company erected a 22ft Walker ventilation fan in 1902. Although the colliery closed in 1927 there are extensive remains to be found on the site including the winding enginehouse ( www.ipernity.com/doc/302581/35388203 ), and this building that housed the fan.

A look over the town from the former washery at Shaft No.10 which was opened by Société des Charbonnages du Gouffre in 1916. The concrete structures here were built in 1934 when the mine could produce up to 145,00 tonnes per annum. It closed in 1969 and was later a zoo and a scrapyard. It now stands derelict and rather the worse for wear.

The Prestongrange engine is of the Cornish type and was manufactured by J. E. Mare & Co of Plymouth to the design of engineers Hocking & Loam. This 70 inch engine was brought to the Prestongrange Colliery second hand in 1874 having been used previously on three Cornish Mines, the last being the Great Western Mines from 1869 to 1873. It was bought Harveys of Hayle who sold it on to Prestongrange complete with a new Beam of their own manufacture. The Harvey name cast into the beam has lead to confusion as to the manufacturer and it was Kenneth Brown who discovered the truth ( www.aditnow.co.uk/documents/Prestongrange-Industrial/Prestongrange-a-Myth.pdf ). The engine pumped the pit until electric pumps took over in 1954. The colliery closed in 1962 and the engine is now preserved as a feature in the Industrial Heritage Museum on the site.

The colliery at Snibston saw its first shaft sunk in 1833 by George Stephenson and partners. Closure came 150 years later in December 1983 and the site subsequently became part of the Snibston Discovery Museum. This week Leicestershire County Council announced that the museum would close and some of the land would be sold off for housing. Whether the preserved colliery buildings will survive is yet to be seen. The future of the mining artefacts stored here from various opencast sites is probably not good. :-(

A look along the top of the battery at Monckton coke works.

Remnants of the lamp room at Chatterley Whitfield Colliery. A far cry from what it was, even when the underground tours were running.

Devon Colliery was the Alloa Coal Company's flagship mine. A Cornish-type engine by Neilson & Co of Glasgow was erected here in 1865 and continued in use until the early 1950s. The engine was dismantled in 1965 but the beam survives along with the restored enginehouse. Sadly the office use of the building does not seem to have materialised and it was empty when I visited.

Hanson's Atkinson lorries under the loaders at Riddings Drift in 1970.

Dalong Mine is one of the older sites operated by the Tiefa Coal Mining Administration in Liaoning Provice, North-East China.

Keystone over the door to the offices of the former Stanley Colliery which was owned by the Mapperley Colliery Company. Sunk in the early 1890s this colliery known locally as 'Nibby Pit'. It closed in 1959 but several of the buildings remain in industrial use.