First post, so here goes...
Having acquired a list of about 50,000 possible Staffordshire locations from DHL, fishbrain and I made the delightful jaunt down the M6 from the horizontal rain of the Pennines to meet up with Xan Asmodi and ex0.
After a midday-fail in the centre of Stoke, we decided to head a bit further out of town and try the Chatterley Whitfield Colliery.
I think it's fair to say we all thoroughly enjoyed our little mooch, despite the fluctuating weather conditions, and there's more than enough to go back for as we only explored one of the headstocks. The site is epic!
The site lies around two miles north of Tunstall on the Potteries coalfield, which is the largest in North Staffordshire. It is considered that the Cistercian monks of Hulton Abbey may well have extracted coal from Whitfield in the fourteenth century – there is evidence to suggest that they mined coal from bell pits at nearby Ridgway – but the first recorded workings on the site were by a Burslem coal merchant in 1750.
The Colliery was originally established in the 1860’s when opening of Biddulph railway led to the re-opening of shafts so that coal could be used for iron working.
In 1872, the managing director of the Chatterley Coal and Iron Company, C. J. Homer, bought the site, and went on to invest heavily in railway infrastructure. However, this led to insolvency, and the company went into voluntary liquidation in 1878.
Production continued through an administrator until 1890 when the business was acquired by a newly formed Manchester-based company, the North of England Trustee Debenture and Asset Corporation, who continued to own the site until the industry was nationalised.
Chatterley Whitfield Colliery, Stoke-on-Trent
Visited with fishbrain, Xan_Asmodi and ex0.
Visited with fishbrain, Xan_Asmodi and ex0.
Having acquired a list of about 50,000 possible Staffordshire locations from DHL, fishbrain and I made the delightful jaunt down the M6 from the horizontal rain of the Pennines to meet up with Xan Asmodi and ex0.
After a midday-fail in the centre of Stoke, we decided to head a bit further out of town and try the Chatterley Whitfield Colliery.
I think it's fair to say we all thoroughly enjoyed our little mooch, despite the fluctuating weather conditions, and there's more than enough to go back for as we only explored one of the headstocks. The site is epic!
History
The site lies around two miles north of Tunstall on the Potteries coalfield, which is the largest in North Staffordshire. It is considered that the Cistercian monks of Hulton Abbey may well have extracted coal from Whitfield in the fourteenth century – there is evidence to suggest that they mined coal from bell pits at nearby Ridgway – but the first recorded workings on the site were by a Burslem coal merchant in 1750.
The Colliery was originally established in the 1860’s when opening of Biddulph railway led to the re-opening of shafts so that coal could be used for iron working.
In 1872, the managing director of the Chatterley Coal and Iron Company, C. J. Homer, bought the site, and went on to invest heavily in railway infrastructure. However, this led to insolvency, and the company went into voluntary liquidation in 1878.
Production continued through an administrator until 1890 when the business was acquired by a newly formed Manchester-based company, the North of England Trustee Debenture and Asset Corporation, who continued to own the site until the industry was nationalised.
And now for some pics
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ex0 doing his thing
ex0 doing his thing
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Thanks for viewing,
tweek
tweek
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