Coal Mining in Coleorton
Coal mining has taken place in Coleorton since medieval times and provided economic wealth for the landowners and paid occupation for the working population.
Bell Pits
In early times coal was obtained from holes dug straight down to reach the seam and then excavated in a "bell" shape below until it became unsafe. Then another shaft was dug nearby and the spoil from that used to fill in the first hole. This resulted in circular patterns in the ground which can still be seen around Coleorton and nearby Swannington. Typically the coal was hewn down in the pit by women and youngsters with the men staying at the top to winch up baskets full of coal and the tired family members at the end of the day.
Later this was replaced with Ginns turned by horses. The Ginn Stables were where the horses were lodged during shifts.
Mining took place in the area from at least 1204 until the 1990s, and this is reflected in the density and complexity of the remains. From at least the 13th century, coal was picked up, or mined in shallow opencuts. Medieval/post-medieval coal mining remains, Rough Park and Birch Coppice, Church Town >>
Mining pre - 1800
- Mining took place across Coleorton and surrounding areas since the middle ages. Most of this was below-ground mining though some coal was dug from fairly shallow workings.
- During the work to develop a large open-cast mine to the north of Coleorton known as "The Lounge" archaelogists discovered ancient under-ground workings. See "The Tudor Miners of Coleorton" by Robert F Hartley (pdf). Some of the items recovered at Leicester Museum Collections >>
Report by Stuart Warburton, who led the archaeology team from Leicester University Association of Industrial Archaeology article - Many mines run mostly by the Beaumont family or agents were located in Rough park to the north of Coleorton Hall. Major source of income from the Coleorton Manor for the Beaumonts into the mid 1800s.
- Paddock Collery - was operating at the time of William Jessop’s 1794 tramway to the Charnwood Forest Canal.On the north side of what is now the A512 Ashby to Loughborough Road, between the top end of Lower Moor Road and the brook.
- Burslem's Colliery - on the north side of the A512 Ashby to Loughborough Road, to the west of the George Inn.
- In 1792 New Coleorton Colliery was sunk with two shafts in a site probably to the south of the Bug'n'Wink.
It's estimated that the annual output of coal from Coleorton in 1579 was 10,000 tons.
Mines from 1800
- Peggs Green 1830-1859
- Coleorton No1 (California) 1849 - 1873
- Coleorton No2 (Califat / Alabama / Windmill) St George's Hill, Swannington. 1855 - 1873
- Coleorton No3 (Bug & Wink) 1875 - 1933
- Joseph Smart & Son (Colliery & Brickworks) 1874 - 1880
- New Lount 1925 - 1968
- Open cast mining at "The Lounge" north of Coleorton 1985 - 1993
The naming of local mines is an interesting topic. A colliery may have had more than one name; often, although a mine had an official name, it was commonly known by a local name within mining families and communities. The names were acquired for historic or local reasons. It was the custom of the time to name pits after contemporary events.
Coleorton's Number 1 mine was known as California Pit because it opened at the time of the Californian gold rush.
Coleorton's Number 2 mine was known by three names .. Windmill probably because of its situation near one of the local mills that existed in the area at the time, near to where Hough Mill stands today, Alabama because in 1864 the US Navy sank the CSS Alabama off the coast of France.
Coleorton's Number 3 mine was also known by three names. One of these, the Bug & Wink, might have originated as a result of the colliery management being cunning in their skill of humbug and hoodwinking when negotiating wages with the miners! Rev. Eager, in his book about Coleorton, wrote that in the old days the pit was known as "The Bread & Herring" so badly were the miners paid. Tom Brooks worked as a collier, as did his father and he recalled that it was also called Checklands Colliery as all the wagons had this name on them. G. Checkland & Co. already operated a mine in Donisthorpe and developed the one in Coleorton in 1875.
Coleorton No 1 Colliery (California) 1849 - 1873
Colliery Owners - Benjamin Walker and William Worswick. Located by the Zion Hill recreation ground owned by NW Leicestershire District Council, opposite the New Inn. There was also a brickworks at the site.
Coleorton No 3 "The Bug & Wink"
This pit operated from 1875 to 1933 by Checkland & Co Ltd. In 1933 the Bug And Wink colliery was purchased by the Leicestershire Colliery & Pipe Co.Ltd, who also owned New Lount Colliery. They continued to work the seams at Coleorton with the coal being taken out at New Lount. It was a moved that enabled the LC&P Co. Ltd to continue to operate New Lount utilising one of the specific seams at Coleorton.
The site is now redeveloped as Coleorton Wood owned and managed by Coleorton Parish and the Coleorton & New Lount Volunteer Group and as part of the National Forest.
New Lount Colliery
New Lount Colliery in Newbold, was initially a series of shallow workings. In 1924 the first deep shaft was sunk. Lady Beaumont turned the first turf for New Lount Colliery in 1924 >>
New Lount Colliery closed in 1968 but was kept open till the 1970s for pumping out water from the shafts.
The site has been turned into a Nature Reserve managed by NWLDC rangers and Coleorton & New Lount Volunteer Group.
Newbold Heritage Group have created a Mining Trail with information boards. More about the New Lount Colliery Heritage Trail >>
You can see from the Census figures how many people worked in the mines during the 19th century. The last deep mine at New Lount closed in 1968. Opencast mining continued at the Lounge site near J13 of the A42 at Ashby until 1990.
Fatalities in the mines
Mining was a most dangerous occupation and fatalities and death no respecter of age or status. The devastation to their families left behind was awful see Gwen Milnes story of the Richards family. List of fatalities in Coleorton mines available from Samuel T. Stewart's book, pdf available for download at his history books website >>
Mining accidents
Accidents were frequent and devastating to the miner and their families who relied on their income. Read Elaine oldham's article - Memories of mining accidents.
William Birch
William Birch was awarded the Edward Medal for bravery for his attempts to save a fellow miner trapped in a rock fall at the Coleorton No.3. Colliery (Bug & Wink) on Dec 11th 1910. The medal was presented by King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace on March 9th 1911. See the report of the occasion and celebrations on his return to Coleorton >>
More about the Edward Medal which was awarded for life saving in mines and quarries >>
Employment of women and children
Back in the bell pit days mining was often a family affair. The man of the house would lower his wife and children into the pit where they would excavate coal as far as it was safe and fill baskets with coal for the men to pull up. Without any machines or engines the men were the ones strong enough to haul up the coal - and their families - at the end of the shift. Not particularly nice, but not as horrific as the conditions in the commercial underground mines that were common in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Children, girls and boys worked alongside their parents in dark, dirty, dangerous and hot conditions. Women also worked, pulling trucks full of coal in low-ceilinged tunnels uphill to the exit. They were frequently unclothed.
In 1842 a commission headed by Lord Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury did a thorough review of working conditions of children in mines. When published its findings horrified the Victorian public and the Mines & Collieries Act 1842 was passed. This set out strict rules for employment of women and children by collieries:
- No female was to be employed underground
- No boy under 10 years old was to be employed underground
About the Mines & Colliery Act 1842 >>
More about mining in Coleorton
- What's in a name - strange names for Coleorton coal pits
- History books by Samuel T. Stuart including "The Development of Coal Mining in Coleorton", "Record of fatalities in local mines" and "A history of Coleorton No 3 Colliery" which are available free to download.
- The Tudor Miners of Coleorton by Robert F Hartley (pdf)
- Coleorton Hall History of the Hall, the Beaumonts and mining in Coleorton (some interesting links)
- Coal Mining in Leicestershire - "Keeping Coal Alive"
- Coleorton Colliery - Northern Mines Research Society
- "Airborne Thermal Investigation of Mining Activity in the Coleorton region" by Claire Fleming and John Carney, British Geological Survey
- Swannington Heritage Trust (has a good section about local coal-mining, railways etc.)
- Mining Heritage Trail (pdf)
- Califat Colliery (Coleorton No 2 mine). Site History & Excavation report by Peter Neaveson (pdf)
- Robert Bradley's UK Mining time-line
- Historic England - Coal mining remains 600m south west of Smoile Farm
- Sheldon family mining activities in and around Coleorton
- Mantle Arts has an on-line shop where you can purchase "Getting the Coal" - the story of a Leicestershire mining community, in the words of the people who lived there, from the early years of the 20th century to the closure of the pits in the 1990s. Compiled by Jeanne Carswell and Tracey Roberts.
Articles about coal mining and miners by Coleorton Heritage Group members
- Before the Bug'n'Wink - early coal-mining in Coleorton
- Huntingdon Beaumont: Coleorton's coal-mining innovator and Great Grandfather of Railways
- Memories of mining accidents
- Child Labour in the coal mines
- If you go down to the Woods today .. creating Coleorton Wood
- Turning the first turf for New Lount Colliery in 1924
- Memories of local mining
- More articles >>
Coal mining families
David Gardner was killed at the Bug & Wink on 29 December 1910 and is buried at St George's Church, Peggs Green
The Beaumont Social Centre, originally The Miners Welfare Institute, was built in 1929 on the site of Peggs Green mine. More about the Beaumont Centre >>