The terminus of the ginny track (tramway) at Rowley Colliery c.1868

The Burnley Coalfield is the most northerly portion of the Lancashire Coalfield. Surrounding Burnley, Nelson, Blackburn and Accrington, it is separated from the larger southern part by an area of Millstone Grit that forms the Rossendale anticline. Occupying a syncline, it stretches from Blackburn past Colne to the Yorkshire border where its eastern flank is the Pennine anticline.

Geography and geology

The Burnley Coalfield which surrounds Burnley, Nelson, Blackburn and Accrington is the most northerly portion of the Lancashire Coalfield. The Rossendale anticline, an area of Millstone Grit, separates it from the larger southern part of the coalfield.[1] Occupying a syncline bounded by the Pendle monocline to the north, the coalfield stretches from Blackburn, eastwards past Colne to the Pennine anticline on the border with Yorkshire.[2]

The coalfield's seams are the Westphalian Coal Measures of the Carboniferous period, laid down from the vegetation of tropical swampy forests more than 300 million years ago but here, only the Lower Coal Measures remain. Within the coalfield, the dip in the strata varies from shallow to the south and west but steeper where there are faults.[3] Named faults include the Deerplay Fault in the middle of the district which is associated with a line to west where the Lower Mountain and Upper Foot mines combine to form the Union mine. The Cliviger Valley Fault has a throw of up to 400 metres (1,300 ft) in the Cliviger valley. The intersecting Theiveley Lead Mine and nearby Hameldon Faults are some of a smaller number of easterly aligned structures which separate the coalfield from the horizontal strata of Rossendale.[3][4] Other unnamed faults include one between Altham and Huncoat which is considered to be the boundary between the Burnley and Accrington district.[2]

Around the district, 19 coal seams, of varying thickness were exploited over time.[5] The most important were the Lower/Union and Upper Mountain, Dandy, King and Arley mines.[lower-alpha 1] Seams were generally less than 1.5 metres in thickness, frequently less.[6] One notable exception occurs in the Calder Valley near Gawthorpe Hall, where as a result of the absence of the Tim Bobbin Rock which usually separates the King and Fulledge Thin mines, the Padiham Thick mine is up to 5.3 metres thick.[7][8] Coal extracted from the Arley, Upper and Lower Mountain mines was used to produce high grade metallurgical coke which was in high demand for industry, whereas coal from the Union/Upper Foot mines had a high sulphur content making it unsuitable for making coke.[5]

The Union mine is contaminated with in-seam concretions known locally as coal balls or bobbers, spherical concretions, composed of limestone measuring from 0.1 to 1.0 metre in diameter that posed hazards for mining. They were largely responsible for the closure of Bank Hall Colliery, the area's largest and deepest pit.

History

A collapsed bell pit at Castercliff near Nelson

Coal was exploited in the 13th century at Trawden near Colne where receipts are mentioned in a rent roll from 1295. Coal was also bought at Cliviger.[9] The first coals were extracted at the outcrops before shaft and adit mining were adopted. The coal industry grew in the 16th and 17th centuries, developing from manorial tenants who dug coal for their own use into fixed term leases in return for rent. Coal was mined all around Burnley, mostly from shafts. By 1800, more than a dozen pits had been sunk in central Burnley.[10]

The arrival of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal was a catalyst for industrialisation as was the coming of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway line through Burnley to Colne in 1848.[11] In the 1840s some old small pits such as Cleggs Pit and Habergham closed and larger collieries were sunk at Bank House Colliery, Whittlefield Colliery and the old Fulledge Colliery was redeveloped and linked by a tramway to canal. Tramways came into more common use in the 1880s and several collieries in the town were linked by the system.[12]

Several collieries were nationalised under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946 on vesting day, 1 January 1947.[13] After the 1950s much of the area was opencasted.[14] Coal was opencast at Helm, Royal Zone, Gawthorpe Hall and Tipping Hill.[14][15][16] Hill Top Colliery, a very small drift mine near Bacup, was still producing small amounts of coal in 2010 before complete closure in 2014.[17]

Collieries

Accrington district

Monument to the Moorfield disaster.

Burnley district

Monument in Bank Hall Park
An old surface drift at the site of Porters Gate Colliery.
  • Burnt Hills Colliery 53°45′11″N 2°15′47″W / 53.753°N 2.263°W / 53.753; -2.263 (Burnt Hills) on the Burnley – Edenfield road (A682) at Clow Bridge in Dunnockshaw and nearby Porters Gate 53°45′36″N 2°16′12″W / 53.760°N 2.270°W / 53.760; -2.270 (Porters Gate) were two small collieries owned by the Executors of John Hargreaves that operated from the 1840s and closed in 1920 as the redeveloped Hapton Valley Colliery had taken over their workings 10 years previously. Both worked the Upper and Lower Mountain mines and Burnt Hills had a coal staithe and a surface tramroad that connected the pits by about 1863. In 1880 the tramroad was extended from Porters Gate to connect to the system at Hapton Valley. In 1892 Burnt Hills had two 44-metre (48 yd) shafts with a single-cylinder winding engine and an underground engine drove a 3.2-kilometre (2 mi) long haulage system that raised the coal through a surface drift. Porters Gate had several shafts and a least three surface drifts and was one of the few pits in the area to record zero fatal accidents.[45][46]
  • Calder Colliery 53°47′42″N 2°20′38″W / 53.795°N 2.344°W / 53.795; -2.344 (Calder) was open from 1908 until July 1958. It was sunk by George Hargreaves Collieries beside the Padiham to Clayton-le-Moors (A678) road on the north side the River Calder near Simonstone. Shaft sinking had commenced by 1903 but was stopped for several years due to water ingress. Coal was got from the Lower Mountain mine which was 0.8 metres (2 ft 8 in) thick using longwall cutters and conveyor belts The pit was later linked to Huncoat and Moorfield Collieries. The pit was nationalised in 1947 and even though it was uneconomic, demand for this quality of coal was so high that production continued until its reserves were depleted and it closed in 1958.[47][48][49]
  • Clifton Colliery 53°47′38″N 2°15′18″W / 53.794°N 2.255°W / 53.794; -2.255 (Clifton) was sunk in 1876 by the Executors of John Hargreaves on the road from Burnley to Clifton Farm. It closed in 1955 but one shaft was retained for use as a pumping station until 1971.[50][51][52]
  • Mining at Copy Pit 53°44′35″N 2°10′37″W / 53.743°N 2.177°W / 53.743; -2.177 (Copy Pit) began in the 1830s from a drift near to Walton Copy Farm in Cliviger near the source of the River Calder. After the arrival of the railway line between Todmorden on the Manchester and Leeds Railway and Burnley in the 1850s, the Cliviger Coal and Coke Company expanded its operations.[53] The pit was near the summit of the railway and gave its name to the route. Copy Row, a terrace of seven cottages was built for the mine workers on Burnley Road.[54] The company built coke ovens and a gantry over the Todmorden turnpike road to a loading bay by the rail line. To access the Arley mine, the company sank two shafts in 1860. A Cornish-type steam pump was installed to de-water the pit. The headgear for each shaft was arranged on either side of the engine house with a single wheel for each. One shaft had a cage for miners and the other had a cage for coal tubs. Copy Pit was the Cliviger Coal and Coke Company's only colliery to be nationalised in 1947 as the others had been worked out. The pit produced 1,000 tons of coal per week until 1963, when it closed.[53][55] At nationalisation the pit employed 52 men below ground in the Dandy seam and 17 surface workers.[56]
Deerplay filter beds
  • Deerplay Colliery 53°44′02″N 2°11′49″W / 53.734°N 2.197°W / 53.734; -2.197 (Deerplay) was established close to the source of the River Irwell and the Burnley to Bacup Road by the Deerplay Colliery Company in 1894/5. The colliery's two drifts accessed the Lower Mountain and Little mines in workings to the west of the drifts. After 1915, the colliery was worked with the company's other drift mine at Black Clough until 1940. In the 1940s Deerplay employed up to 46 men underground and 8 on the surface. It closed in April 1941 but the National Coal Board NCB refurbished it before re-opening it to exploit reserves to the east of the drifts in 1951/2. The new colliery had an average workforce of 143 underground and 15 surface workers. Ten advancing longwall faces were worked including one at Hill Top which after closure was linked by a tunnel. The last face at Hill Top was closed as it neared old workings in November 1967 and was abandoned in March 1968. The Deerplay site is now occupied by lagoons for settling and filtering ochreous water from the workings which polluted the Irwell from its source.[57]
The remains of the engine house at Fox Clough Colliery
Old Meadows Pumping Station
The man-made lake at Rowley

See also

References

Notes

  1. In this part of Lancashire a coal seam is referred to as a mine and the coal mine as a colliery or pit.

Citations

  1. Davies 2010, p. 37.
  2. 1 2 Williamson 1999, p. 5.
  3. 1 2 Hough 2004, p. 20.
  4. Williamson 1999, pp. 4–8
  5. 1 2 3 Williamson 1999, p. 8.
  6. Williamson 1999, p. 9.
  7. Hough 2004, p. 15.
  8. Williamson 1999, p. 12.
  9. Davies 2010, p. 12.
  10. 1 2 Mitchell & Hartley 2005, p. 21.
  11. Mitchell & Hartley 2005, p. 29.
  12. Mitchell & Hartley 2005, p. 23.
  13. The Burnley Coalfield Collieries after Nationalisation in 1947, Northern Mine Research Society, retrieved 30 March 2018
  14. 1 2 Hough 2004, p. 21.
  15. Historic England. "Monument No. 1381336 (1381336)". Research records (formerly PastScape). Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  16. Historic England. "Monument No. 1381455 (1381455)". Research records (formerly PastScape). Retrieved 2 April 2018.
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  26. Davies 2010, p. 220.
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  28. Lancashire and Furness (Map). 1 : 2,500. County Series. Ordnance Survey. 1893.
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Bibliography

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