Report - Chatterley Whitfield Colliery, Stoke - July '11

[Xan_Asmodi]

visited with ex0, tweek and fishbrain

A quick reminder of the day, from my Oakamoor/Churnet Valley Heritage Railway Sidings.

the day started with my alarm dragging me back in to a hazy state of consciousness. Right; i'm on a sofa bed in stafford, with my head screaming from a stonking hangover. Great!

I'd headed down to stafford the night before after a shit day in work and receiving some intel on sites in the stafford area from dhl. After getting home from work i was packed and out the door in less than 45 minutes, heading to lime street station in liverpool to catch the train to stafford. An hour later i disembarked from the virgin pendelino and met up with a good friend. I won't bore you with the details, but sufficed to say, a bottle of morgan's spiced was sunk that with me drinking the majority!

Fast forward seven hours and i'm waking up and getting ready to meet ex0 off the train at half ten. After meeting up with ex0 at the station, we mooched around marvelling at virgin trains powering gracefully, seemingly effortlessly through to destinations unknown. At the appointed time we went outside and waited to meet fishbrain and tweek. Unsure of who we was looking for ex0 and I just waited to be approached. Approached we were, introductions where made and we started planning our moves based on dhl's intel. Right, where's the closest site? Stoke. Damn! Ah well, off we go to stoke then!

After many wrong turns in stoke city centre and many jokes about stoke being a shit hole, we found our way to J H Weatherby's Falcon Works Pottery. We scoped the perimeter, they'd done a reasonable job of securing the building. Scratch that off the list. Where is the next closest site then? Chatterley whitfield it is!

I'd given hidden shadow's brilliant report a glance previously, but that's all it was, a glance. Approaching the site i didn't remember seeing the report, it was all new.

_______________history_______________​

Taken from The Friends of Chatterley Whitfield and Staffordshire Past-Track

In this photograph of Whitfield colliery taken in 1930 five pit heads can be clearly seen from left to right: Winstanley pit (1913); Engine pit (1863); Middle pit (1863); Institute pit (1874); Platt pit (1883); and Hesketh pit (1914).​

After 1947 a policy of modernisation took place throughout the whole mining industry. In 1952 mine cars and locomotive haulage were introduced underground at Whitfield and a new mine car circuit installed on the surface. The building to accomodate this is still standing.

With the advent of cheap oil supplies from abroad in the late 1950s, contraction in the coalmining industry began to take place. The collieries most affected by this were the older ones where the best coal had been worked out and at which it was dificult to mine coal economically. Chatterley Whitfield was one of the victims of this period, output declining from over one million tons per year in 1937 to 408,000 tons in 1965.

Coal drawing stopped at the Institute shaft in 1955 and the Middle Pit in 1968. In 1974 it was decided that Whitfield coal could be more easily worked from Wolstanton Colliery and an underground roadway was driven to join the two pits. In 1976 coal drawing at Chatterley Whitfield came to an end.

_______________pictures_______________​

History done, back with the story

Not having any idea on the site or access we drove up to the main gate, only to spot yet another gate and CCTV. Right, turn around and find somewhere to park up. After invading a residential street nearby, we decided to yomp up to the colliery. The view was beautiful, the three headstocks where laid out in front us along with some very rustic buildings.Glorious! Time to start looking for access.

As Hidden Shadow has said in his report, the rumours about the new fence is true. A shiny new palisade fence which is at least an 8 foot tall and concreted at the base. Who ever decided on the security here, they really want to keep people out, including those pesky urban explorers. This place needs a good recce, access isn't easy but I'll say no more about it here.

After gaining access we decided to keep stealthy, ninja time! We crept around the access site whilest we debated where we were going to hit, do we do this? Do we do that? We decided to keep going on the side we were on, pushing through the bushes and looking, I suppose, for a Target of opportunity. I'll leave off the story here to get on with bit of history.

After heading through the undergrowth we were met with our first real sight of industry; the hulking steel and concrete remains of a coal cart run. Noice! We made our way over, unpacked our gear and set about shooting. After filling up on snaps of here we started to look at moving on, after all this place is locked up tight.

[1]
Notice the steel panels with spikes on top? They're the doors and windows

we decided to press on through, see what we could find. Fish Brain, ex0 and myself press on and find a nice, but rotting standard gauge wagon of some description. Tweek had slipped off somewhere unknown.

[2]

We decided we wanted to press on, we just needed Tweek. But Tweek was no where to be seen. Fish got on his phone, this is the jist of the conversation;

"Alright mate, where are you we're moving on soon"

"I'm up top..."

"Fuck yeah, see you soon!"

The climb was interesting that's all I'm going to say, aside from barbed wire strikes where you least expect it! When we got to the top we knew we'd hit industry!

[3]

[4]

Here the narrow gauge track splits in to three and the coal carts entered the blue contraptions ahead, presumably to emptied into waiting standard gauge wagons below. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

We all got our cameras out and started shooting. From what I can remember and what my photo time stamps say, I was shooting for a grand total of TWO minutes before we heard male voices and a dog nearby. Fuck! Now I realise it was a day of fucking aweful weather, but we didn't know if secca patrolled the site. As it was dry under the suprisingly intact roof above us, we sat down and waited in tense silence. We all wanted to avoid a meeting with any secca, especially secca we believed to have dogs! It was fifteen minutes before I took another photo, but it seemed so much longer. Eventually we decided that who ever was about had gone on their merry way and it was safe for us to continue on. We got up and Tweek and I each lit up a cigarette, both feeling the need for the nicotine hit. Again we started to wander round, ex0 even climbing a ladder to look at some lift machinery. After who ever it was had fucked off we seemed to have renewed energy, the adrenaline brought on by going ninja coursing through our veins.

We pushed on down the long that returned the carts to the lift.

[5]

We turned the corner at the bottom of the corridor and my heart soared, we'd found colliery pr0n!

[6]

We spent the better part of an hour wandering round here, ex0 and Fish even managed to make it to the headstock.

[7]

There are some great original features

[8]

[9]

[10]

And a lot of barbed wire!

[11]

At this point - not quite realising how little of the site we'd seen - we decided we where going to head out. We didn't want to push our luck and as I said in the Oakamoor report, we needed stodge so maccies was in order. Down we went, I reckoned we could get to the access quicker if we went off the beaten path, and so with the rest of quartet following me I headed onward. Coming to a small rise we heard the dreaded noises again... Voices and dogs! At this juncture we collectively decided the old addage is true, discretion is the better part of valor! We made a sharp about turn and headed back the way we knew. No fucking around this time, straight out. Once out we decided on a chilled explore. On to Oakamoor!

After leaving Chatterley Whitfield we all had the hunger; the hunger for grilled cow, the hunger for potato immersed in boiling lipids, the hunger for caffeine infused carbonated beverages, some of us for banana flavoured ice and lacate based drinks. There was only one for it. McDONALD'S! Into Google Maps it went and we were off to refuel!

Thanks for looking
The rest of the images are over at my blog​