Arkwright - Last House Standing - June 2013
Heard a lot about this lone house in the old town that got move so checked it out!
History...
November 9th 1988 a state of emergency was called in the village. British Gas engineers were called investigating reports of a gas leak as the fire was still burning in the hearth at one of the houses at 9 Hardwick Street and after investigating the problem, reported that it was not a leak on their mains but one of methane escaping from underground workings. The house was found to have 1% of methane in the area. On further investigation it was found that further properties in Penrose Street and on Chesterfield Road were affected. Consequently 110 people from 56 homes were evacuated for a period of two weeks. As a result of this methane drainage and controlled burning of the methane from underground was undertaken and a plant was constructed to do this at the site of the old colliery.
A second alarm was raised in the Autumn of 1989 when an exposed part of the coalfield ignited and a fire resulted burning for about four weeks, the fear was that the resulting fire would ignite the methane underground and destroy the village. It was initially proposed to excavate 5,000 tons of coal from the affected seam but this scheme was dropped in favour of a more radical scheme.
British Coal denied any responsibility but in a move to calm the fears of locals decided to embark on an opencast venture to remove 3.2 million tons of coal from the uppermost seams of the middle coal measures thus venting the methane into the atmosphere and a reclamation of the colliery spoil heaps to recover a further 800,000 tons of coal. This would be at least a 10 year project of opencast mining and included the construction of a new village a few hundred yards away and then the demolition of the old village.
History...
November 9th 1988 a state of emergency was called in the village. British Gas engineers were called investigating reports of a gas leak as the fire was still burning in the hearth at one of the houses at 9 Hardwick Street and after investigating the problem, reported that it was not a leak on their mains but one of methane escaping from underground workings. The house was found to have 1% of methane in the area. On further investigation it was found that further properties in Penrose Street and on Chesterfield Road were affected. Consequently 110 people from 56 homes were evacuated for a period of two weeks. As a result of this methane drainage and controlled burning of the methane from underground was undertaken and a plant was constructed to do this at the site of the old colliery.
A second alarm was raised in the Autumn of 1989 when an exposed part of the coalfield ignited and a fire resulted burning for about four weeks, the fear was that the resulting fire would ignite the methane underground and destroy the village. It was initially proposed to excavate 5,000 tons of coal from the affected seam but this scheme was dropped in favour of a more radical scheme.
British Coal denied any responsibility but in a move to calm the fears of locals decided to embark on an opencast venture to remove 3.2 million tons of coal from the uppermost seams of the middle coal measures thus venting the methane into the atmosphere and a reclamation of the colliery spoil heaps to recover a further 800,000 tons of coal. This would be at least a 10 year project of opencast mining and included the construction of a new village a few hundred yards away and then the demolition of the old village.
The shots...
Cheers!
