Astley and Tyldesley Collieries
Encyclopedia
The Astley and Tyldesley Collieries Company formed in 1900 owned coal mines on the Lancashire Coalfield
south of the railway in Astley
and Tyldesley
, then in the historic county of Lancashire
, England. The company became part of Manchester Collieries
in 1929 and some of its collieries were nationalised in 1947.
whose coal seams were laid down in the Carboniferous
period, where some easily accessible seams were worked on a small scale before the Industrial Revolution
, and extensively from the mid-19th century until the middle of the 20th century. The Coal Measures
lie above a bed of Millstone Grit
and are interspersed with sandstone
s, mudstone
s, shale
s, and fireclays. The most productive seams are in the lower two thirds of the Middle Coal Measures where coal is mined from seams between the Worsley Four Foot and Arley mines. The Coal Measures generally dip towards the south and west. Numerous small faults affect the coalfield.
and sank a pit, Astley Colliery, which subsequently became the site of Gin Pit Colliery
. It was near other old shafts on Meanley's Farm. Coal had been mined in Astley before this date, on an old enclosure map North Lane was titled the "Coal Road" and later was known as "North Coal Pit Lane".
In 1847 Darlington's company was known as Astley and Bedford Collieries, which had offices at Bedford Lodge in Bedford, Leigh. Gin Pit's name suggests it, or its predecessor, had horse driven
winding gear and was on the site of even older coal workings. The colliery site was isolated from roads resulting in Darlington building a narrow gauge tramway worked by horses to transport coal
from his pit to a basin on the Bridgewater Canal
at Marsland Green. In 1851 Darlington attempted to sell his colliery, tramroad, cranes and tipplers on the canal to the Bridgewater Trustees
but the operation was eventually sold to Samuel Jackson, a salt merchant and owner of Bedford Colliery or Milner's Pit which he had bought from W.E.Milner around the same time. Jackson's lease was for coal from the Worsley Four Foot mine and he was required to sink two shafts 14 feet in diameter with no workings under Astley Hall
.
A lease of 1857 committed the company to paying the lessors of Astley Hall a minimum annual rent of £1,000 and royalties for the Bin mine of £70 "per foot thick per Cheshire acre
", for the Crombouke £95, the Brassey £70, and the Six Foot £95. The lease expired in 1896. By the time the Astley Hall estate was sold in 1889, Astley and Tyldesley Collieries had paid a total of £90,526 for these mines and the Worsley Four Foot mine. The deeper mines, the Seven Feet and the Trencherbone, were not included in the 1857 lease. These coal seams produced steam coal, household coal and coal for Tyldesley's gasworks. About 500 tons of coal per day was raised from the older pits. The Bedford Colliery closed in 1864 and the company concentrated its operations closer to Gin Pit.
(LNWR) opened a line from Eccles to Wigan via Tyldesley and the Tyldesley Loopline
via Leigh
to Kenyon Junction
in 1864, providing the impetus for the rapid exploitation of coal reserves to the south of the railway line. Jackson's Astley and Tyldesley Coal and Salt Company sank two shafts at St Georges Colliery, commonly known as Back o' t' Church, to the south of Tyldesley Station
. In 1866, Nook Colliery
No 1 Pit, south of Darlington's original Gin Pit was sunk. The company also sank a pit at Cross Hillock south of the Leigh to Manchester
road in near Higher Green Lane but flooding caused it to close by 1887. The deep collieries replaced the older pits in the area. A new shaft was sunk at Gin Pit in 1872 and a second shaft a year later at Nook Pit. St George's No 3 pit was sunk in 1883 and by 1899 Nook No 3 was in operation.
In about 1888 it was discovered that miners employed by George Green's Tyldesley Coal Company
had exceeded the boundaries of the company's lease and extracted coal south of Well Street which belonged to Astley and Tyldesley Collieries. Lengthy litigation followed resulting in a £3,000 fine for Green's company.
The company was a major employer in the area. In 1896 Nook Pit employed 480 men below ground and 125 workers on the surface. Household and manufacturing coal was produced from the Binn and Crumbouke mines. Gin Pit was smaller employing 240 underground workers and 55 on the surface. Gas coal, household and steam coal was mined from the Crumbouke and Six Foot mines. There were 629 underground workers and 137 surface workers at St Georges colliery producing gas coal, household and steam coal from the Brassey, Crumbouke, Six Feet, Seven Feet and Trencherbone mines. The surface workers included women who sorted coal on the screens at the pit brow.
In 1900 the company became the Astley and Tyldesley Collieries Company, and in 1914 Nook No 4 Pit was sunk. Nook became the largest colliery on the Manchester Coalfield. Jackson's Sidings were built by the LNWR and extended to Gin and Nook Pits and, on the early tramroad, a locomotive replaced the horses. The company built its own standard gauge mineral railway which exchanged traffic with the LNWR at Jackson's Sidings southwest of Tyldesley Station.
Coal was wound to the surface at St George's Colliery, Nook and Gin Pit. Coal for Tyldesley was sold from the landsale yard at St George's and there were smaller yards at Nook and Gin Pit but considerable quantities of coal were sent elsewhere by rail from Jackson's Sidings and by barge from Marsland Green to Partington on the Manchester Ship Canal
. There was a brickworks at Nook Colliery and sheds and facilities for servicing the industrial locomotives at Gin Pit. Gin Pit had a sawmill and supplied pit props to neighbouring collieries.
As a result of poor economic conditions, Astley and Tyldesley Collieries merged with other local colliery companies in 1929, becoming part of Manchester Collieries whose Western Division consisted of John Speakman's Bedford Colliery
, Fletcher, Burrows and Company
of Atherton
and Astley and Tyldesley Collieries.
On nationalisation in 1947 the coal pits belonging to Manchester Collieries became part of the No 1 Manchester Area of the National Coal Board
's (NCB) North Western Division. In 1961, the area became the NCB's East Lancashire Area. Gin Pit closed in 1955 and Nook Pit closed in August 1965.
saddle tank locomotive, bought in 1868 and renamed "Jackson" in 1872. A 2-2-0 tender locomotive "Lady Cornwall" was sold to George Peace in 1774 by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway
's works at Miles Platting
at a cost of £150 and was later rebuilt as tank engine. In 1875 Manning Wardle supplied "Maden", a 6-coupled tank engine and "Astley" another 6-coupled tank locomotive was bought from Sharp Stewart in 1886. The second "Tyldesley", another 6-coupled tank engine was bought in 1894 from Peckett with "Jackson" taken in part exchange.
The company bought three 0-6-0 side tank locomotives from Lowca Engineering in Whitehaven
, "T.B. Wood" in 1897, "James Lord" in 1903 and "George Peace" in 1906. Two unique 0-8-0 side tank locomotives, "Maden" in 1910 and "Emanuell Clegg" in 1924 were built by Naysmith Wilson
at Patricroft
.
Lancashire Coalfield
The Lancashire Coalfield in north-west England was one of the most important British coalfields.-Geography and geology:The geology of the coalfield consists of the coal seams of the Upper, Middle and Lower Coal Measures, layers of sandstones, shales and coal of varying thickness, which were laid...
south of the railway in Astley
Astley, Greater Manchester
Astley is a settlement within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in Greater Manchester, England, variously described as a suburb or a village. Astley lies on flat land to the northwest of the city of Manchester, and is crossed by the Bridgewater Canal and the A580 "East Lancashire Road"...
and Tyldesley
Tyldesley
Tyldesley is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England. It occupies an area north of Chat Moss near the foothills of the West Pennine Moors, east-southeast of Wigan and west-northwest of the city of Manchester...
, then in the historic county of Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
, England. The company became part of Manchester Collieries
Manchester Collieries
Manchester Collieries was a coal mining company formed in 1929 with headquarters at Walkdenfrom a group of independent companies operating on the Manchester Coalfield. The Mining Industry Act of 1926 attempted to stem the post-war decline in coal mining and encourage independent companies to merge...
in 1929 and some of its collieries were nationalised in 1947.
Geology
The company's collieries were on a part of the Manchester CoalfieldManchester Coalfield
The Manchester Coalfield is part of the South East Lancashire Coalfield. Its coal seams were laid down in the Carboniferous period and some easily accessible seams were worked on a small scale from the Middle Ages and extensively from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th...
whose coal seams were laid down in the Carboniferous
Carboniferous
The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Devonian Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Permian Period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Mya . The name is derived from the Latin word for coal, carbo. Carboniferous means "coal-bearing"...
period, where some easily accessible seams were worked on a small scale before the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
, and extensively from the mid-19th century until the middle of the 20th century. The Coal Measures
Coal Measures
The Coal Measures is a lithostratigraphical term for the coal-bearing part of the Upper Carboniferous System. It represents the remains of fluvio-deltaic sediment, and consists mainly of clastic rocks interstratified with the beds of coal...
lie above a bed of Millstone Grit
Millstone Grit
Millstone Grit is the name given to any of a number of coarse-grained sandstones of Carboniferous age which occur in the Northern England. The name derives from its use in earlier times as a source of millstones for use principally in watermills...
and are interspersed with sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
s, mudstone
Mudstone
Mudstone is a fine grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Grain size is up to 0.0625 mm with individual grains too small to be distinguished without a microscope. With increased pressure over time the platey clay minerals may become aligned, with the...
s, shale
Shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering...
s, and fireclays. The most productive seams are in the lower two thirds of the Middle Coal Measures where coal is mined from seams between the Worsley Four Foot and Arley mines. The Coal Measures generally dip towards the south and west. Numerous small faults affect the coalfield.
History
In the 1840s, John Darlington leased the mineral rights of land belonging to Astley HallDamhouse
Damhouse or Astley Hall is a Grade II* Listed building located in Tyldesley, Greater Manchester, England. It has served as a manor house, sanatorium, and, since restoration in 2000, houses offices, a clinic, nursery and tearooms.-History:...
and sank a pit, Astley Colliery, which subsequently became the site of Gin Pit Colliery
Gin Pit Colliery
Gin Pit was a coal mine operating on the Lancashire Coalfield from the 1840s in Tyldesley, Greater Manchester then in the historic county of Lancashire, England...
. It was near other old shafts on Meanley's Farm. Coal had been mined in Astley before this date, on an old enclosure map North Lane was titled the "Coal Road" and later was known as "North Coal Pit Lane".
In 1847 Darlington's company was known as Astley and Bedford Collieries, which had offices at Bedford Lodge in Bedford, Leigh. Gin Pit's name suggests it, or its predecessor, had horse driven
Horse mill
A horse mill is a mill that uses a horse as the power source. Any milling process can be powered in this way, but the most frequent use of animal power in horse mills was for grinding grain and pumping water. Other animals used for powering mills include dogs, donkeys and oxen. Engines powered by...
winding gear and was on the site of even older coal workings. The colliery site was isolated from roads resulting in Darlington building a narrow gauge tramway worked by horses to transport coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
from his pit to a basin on the Bridgewater Canal
Bridgewater Canal
The Bridgewater Canal connects Runcorn, Manchester and Leigh, in North West England. It was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester...
at Marsland Green. In 1851 Darlington attempted to sell his colliery, tramroad, cranes and tipplers on the canal to the Bridgewater Trustees
Bridgewater Collieries
Bridgewater Collieries originated from the coal mines on the Manchester Coalfield in Worsley in the historic county of Lancashire owned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater in the second half of the 18th century. After the Duke's death in 1803 his estate was managed by the Bridgewater...
but the operation was eventually sold to Samuel Jackson, a salt merchant and owner of Bedford Colliery or Milner's Pit which he had bought from W.E.Milner around the same time. Jackson's lease was for coal from the Worsley Four Foot mine and he was required to sink two shafts 14 feet in diameter with no workings under Astley Hall
Damhouse
Damhouse or Astley Hall is a Grade II* Listed building located in Tyldesley, Greater Manchester, England. It has served as a manor house, sanatorium, and, since restoration in 2000, houses offices, a clinic, nursery and tearooms.-History:...
.
A lease of 1857 committed the company to paying the lessors of Astley Hall a minimum annual rent of £1,000 and royalties for the Bin mine of £70 "per foot thick per Cheshire acre
Acre (Cheshire)
A Cheshire acre is a unit of area historically used in the County of Cheshire.One Cheshire acre amounts to 10,240 square yards, or 92,160 square feet whereas a standard acre amounts to 4,840 square yards or 43,560 square feet...
", for the Crombouke £95, the Brassey £70, and the Six Foot £95. The lease expired in 1896. By the time the Astley Hall estate was sold in 1889, Astley and Tyldesley Collieries had paid a total of £90,526 for these mines and the Worsley Four Foot mine. The deeper mines, the Seven Feet and the Trencherbone, were not included in the 1857 lease. These coal seams produced steam coal, household coal and coal for Tyldesley's gasworks. About 500 tons of coal per day was raised from the older pits. The Bedford Colliery closed in 1864 and the company concentrated its operations closer to Gin Pit.
The deep pits
The London and North Western RailwayLondon and North Western Railway
The London and North Western Railway was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. It was created by the merger of three companies – the Grand Junction Railway, the London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway...
(LNWR) opened a line from Eccles to Wigan via Tyldesley and the Tyldesley Loopline
Tyldesley Loopline
The Tyldesley Loopline was the London and North Western Railway's Manchester and Wigan Railway line from Eccles to the junction west of Tyldesley station and its continuance south west via Bedford Leigh to Kenyon Junction on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The line opened on September 1st 1864...
via Leigh
Leigh, Greater Manchester
Leigh is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England. It is southeast of Wigan, and west of Manchester. Leigh is situated on low lying land to the north west of Chat Moss....
to Kenyon Junction
Kenyon Junction railway station
Kenyon Junction was a junction railway station at Kenyon on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and the Bolton and Leigh Railway near Culcheth in Warrington, England. It was situated within the historic county of Lancashire. The station opened in 1831 and closed to passengers on 2 January 1961...
in 1864, providing the impetus for the rapid exploitation of coal reserves to the south of the railway line. Jackson's Astley and Tyldesley Coal and Salt Company sank two shafts at St Georges Colliery, commonly known as Back o' t' Church, to the south of Tyldesley Station
Tyldesley railway station
Tyldesley railway station is a closed railway station in Greater Manchester. It was situated within the historic county of Lancashire.-History:...
. In 1866, Nook Colliery
Nook Colliery
Nook Colliery was a coal mine operating on the Manchester Coalfield after 1866 in Tyldesley, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England....
No 1 Pit, south of Darlington's original Gin Pit was sunk. The company also sank a pit at Cross Hillock south of the Leigh to Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
road in near Higher Green Lane but flooding caused it to close by 1887. The deep collieries replaced the older pits in the area. A new shaft was sunk at Gin Pit in 1872 and a second shaft a year later at Nook Pit. St George's No 3 pit was sunk in 1883 and by 1899 Nook No 3 was in operation.
In about 1888 it was discovered that miners employed by George Green's Tyldesley Coal Company
Tyldesley Coal Company
Tyldesley Coal Company was a coal mining company formed in 1870 in Tyldesley, on the Manchester Coalfield in the historic county of Lancashire, England that had its origins in Yew Tree Colliery, the location for a mining disaster that killed 25 men and boys in 1858.-History:Yew Tree Farm covered...
had exceeded the boundaries of the company's lease and extracted coal south of Well Street which belonged to Astley and Tyldesley Collieries. Lengthy litigation followed resulting in a £3,000 fine for Green's company.
The company was a major employer in the area. In 1896 Nook Pit employed 480 men below ground and 125 workers on the surface. Household and manufacturing coal was produced from the Binn and Crumbouke mines. Gin Pit was smaller employing 240 underground workers and 55 on the surface. Gas coal, household and steam coal was mined from the Crumbouke and Six Foot mines. There were 629 underground workers and 137 surface workers at St Georges colliery producing gas coal, household and steam coal from the Brassey, Crumbouke, Six Feet, Seven Feet and Trencherbone mines. The surface workers included women who sorted coal on the screens at the pit brow.
In 1900 the company became the Astley and Tyldesley Collieries Company, and in 1914 Nook No 4 Pit was sunk. Nook became the largest colliery on the Manchester Coalfield. Jackson's Sidings were built by the LNWR and extended to Gin and Nook Pits and, on the early tramroad, a locomotive replaced the horses. The company built its own standard gauge mineral railway which exchanged traffic with the LNWR at Jackson's Sidings southwest of Tyldesley Station.
Coal was wound to the surface at St George's Colliery, Nook and Gin Pit. Coal for Tyldesley was sold from the landsale yard at St George's and there were smaller yards at Nook and Gin Pit but considerable quantities of coal were sent elsewhere by rail from Jackson's Sidings and by barge from Marsland Green to Partington on the Manchester Ship Canal
Manchester Ship Canal
The Manchester Ship Canal is a river navigation 36 miles long in the North West of England. Starting at the Mersey Estuary near Liverpool, it generally follows the original routes of the rivers Mersey and Irwell through the historic counties of Cheshire and Lancashire. Several sets of locks lift...
. There was a brickworks at Nook Colliery and sheds and facilities for servicing the industrial locomotives at Gin Pit. Gin Pit had a sawmill and supplied pit props to neighbouring collieries.
As a result of poor economic conditions, Astley and Tyldesley Collieries merged with other local colliery companies in 1929, becoming part of Manchester Collieries whose Western Division consisted of John Speakman's Bedford Colliery
Bedford Colliery
Bedford Colliery, also known as Wood End Pit, was a coal mine on the Manchester Coalfield in Bedford, Leigh, Greater Manchester, England. The colliery was owned by John Speakman, who started sinking two shafts in about 1874 on land at Wood End Farm in the northeast part of Bedford, south of the...
, Fletcher, Burrows and Company
Fletcher, Burrows and Company
Fletcher, Burrows and Company was a coal mining company that owned collieries in Atherton, Greater Manchester, England. Gibfield, Howe Bridge and Chanters collieries exploited the coal mines of the middle coal measures in the Manchester Coalfield...
of Atherton
Atherton, Greater Manchester
Atherton is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England, historically a part of Lancashire. It is east of Wigan, north-northeast of Leigh, and northwest of Manchester...
and Astley and Tyldesley Collieries.
On nationalisation in 1947 the coal pits belonging to Manchester Collieries became part of the No 1 Manchester Area of the National Coal Board
National Coal Board
The National Coal Board was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the mines on "vesting day", 1 January 1947...
's (NCB) North Western Division. In 1961, the area became the NCB's East Lancashire Area. Gin Pit closed in 1955 and Nook Pit closed in August 1965.
Locomotives
The earliest locomotives that worked on the colliery railway system were a narrow gauge engine that worked the tramway to the Bridgewater Canal possibly named "Gordon" and "Tyldesley", a 6-coupled Manning WardleManning Wardle
Manning Wardle was a steam locomotive manufacturer based in Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.- Precursor companies :The city of Leeds was one of the earliest centres of locomotive building; Matthew Murray built the first commercially successful steam locomotive, Salamanca, in Holbeck, Leeds,...
saddle tank locomotive, bought in 1868 and renamed "Jackson" in 1872. A 2-2-0 tender locomotive "Lady Cornwall" was sold to George Peace in 1774 by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway
Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway
The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway was a major British railway company before the 1923 Grouping. It was incorporated in 1847 from an amalgamation of several existing railways...
's works at Miles Platting
Miles Platting
Miles Platting is an inner city district of Manchester, England. It is east-northeast of Manchester city centre, along the course of the Rochdale Canal and A62 road...
at a cost of £150 and was later rebuilt as tank engine. In 1875 Manning Wardle supplied "Maden", a 6-coupled tank engine and "Astley" another 6-coupled tank locomotive was bought from Sharp Stewart in 1886. The second "Tyldesley", another 6-coupled tank engine was bought in 1894 from Peckett with "Jackson" taken in part exchange.
The company bought three 0-6-0 side tank locomotives from Lowca Engineering in Whitehaven
Whitehaven
Whitehaven is a small town and port on the coast of Cumbria, England, which lies equidistant between the county's two largest settlements, Carlisle and Barrow-in-Furness, and is served by the Cumbrian Coast Line and the A595 road...
, "T.B. Wood" in 1897, "James Lord" in 1903 and "George Peace" in 1906. Two unique 0-8-0 side tank locomotives, "Maden" in 1910 and "Emanuell Clegg" in 1924 were built by Naysmith Wilson
Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company
Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company, originally called The Bridgewater Foundry, specialised in the production of heavy machine tools and locomotives. It was located in Patricroft, in Salford England, close to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the Bridgewater Canal and the Manchester Ship Canal...
at Patricroft
Patricroft
Patricroft is a district of Eccles, England, within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire.-History:Patricroft may derive its name from 'Pear-tree croft', or more likely, 'Patrick's Croft'. In 1836, James Nasmyth, in partnership with Holbrook Gaskell, built the Bridgewater Foundry in...
.