Recent changes in the appearance of the Pottery towns has produced a current phrase - “The Changing Face of the Potteries” - and whilst it must be admitted that the “Grim Smile of the Five Towns” as noted by Arnold Bennett is not by any means as grim as it used to be, it should be remembered that it is not in bricks and mortar and steel and concrete alone that the recent changes which have taken place in the Potteries can be measured, no less changes have taken place in the basic industries of coal, iron and steel, and pottery on which a great number of the people of the Potteries still depend for their livelihood. Great and momentous changes have taken place in the staple industries, and as far as the coal industry is concerned, the extent of the industry as regards the collieries, still at work, the men employed in them and the amount of coal mined is nothing to be compared with what it was forty five years ago. During the past summer, while working on the track of the Foxfield Railway, ‘I have been agreeably struck by the interest shown by my colleagues in the collieries that are no longer working, and it has occurred to me that a brief review of the colliery scene as it was forty five years ago may be of interest not only to them but also to members of the Society as a whole. ’
Broadly speaking, the Pottery coalfield is in the shape of a triangle with Kidsgrove in the north as the apex and with a base line extending from Weston Coyney in the east to Madeley in the west, an area of about a hundred square miles. There were quite a number of collieries on the eastern and western arms of the triangle but it was inside the triangle itself that the major concentration of collieries was situated. A few miles to the south-east and quite apart from the Pottery coalfield was the much smaller Cheadle coalfield. Forty five years ago, this coalfield was already past its peak but there were still three collieries at work in it. In 1928, the collieries at work in the Pottery and Cheadle coalfields were as follows and it would probably be better to list them in relation to the railway lines which served them rather than attempt to divide them into set geographical districts of the area.
Biddulph Valley Line: Berry Hill, Norton, Whitfield and Victoria.
Adderley Green Branch from Botteslow Junction on the Biddulph Valley Line: Mossfield and Adderley Green.
Stoke-Derby Line: Glebe.
Parkhall Branch from Millfield Junction on Stoke-Derby Line: Parkhall.
Stoke-Stafford Line: Stafford Coal & Iron Co. Florence
Loop Line: Hanley Deep Pit, Sneyd and Birchenwood
Stoke-Crewe Line: Wolstanton and Racecourse.
Talke Branch from Chatterley Junction: Talk ‘o’ th‘ Hill.
Chesterton Branch from Chatterley Junction: Parkhouse
Market Drayton Line: Silverdale.
Apedale Branch from Market Drayton Line: Holditch, Midland Coal, Coke & Iron Co. (Burley and Podmore Hall Collieries)
Audley Line: Bignall Hill and Madeley (also mineral line to old LNWR main line)
Cheadle Coalfield: Foxfield (mineral line to Blythe Bridge), New Haden (Cheadle Branch) and Parkhall (mineral line to the Cheadle Branch)
The collieries listed above were those actively at work in January 1928. They were all, with one exception, conveniently situated adjacent to the former North Stafford main lines or their associated branches, the one exception being Foxfield colliery. Of all the collieries In North Staffordshire, Foxfield was the furthest situated from any rail link, and in 1893 the colliery company had no option but to build a mineral line nearly four miles long for the conveyance of its coal to the only one available rail link at Blythe Bridge, the Cheadle Branch at that time not having been built. One company, however, chose to ignore its nearest rail link and decided to build a mineral line to a rail link which the owners considered more convenient for their business. This was the Chatterley Iron Co. which took over Whitfield colliery in 1872. At this time, most of the coal from Whitfield went to the Chatterley furnaces via the Biddulph Valley Line, to Stoke and from there via the main line to Chatterley. This was a most circuitous route, so in 1878 the company opened its own line from Whitfield to the Longport spur line which ran from Longport Junction on the N.S.R. main line to Tunstall Junction on the Loop Line. The Whitfield line joined the Longport spur at Pinnox Junction, at which point coal from Whitfield was handed over to the North Stafford within sight of its destination. When the furnaces finished in 1901 and the coal was going further afield to Liverpool for shipping, North Wales, the Lancashire cotton towns and the Cheshire salt people, and with busy wharves at Pinnox, Burslem and Brownhills, the line continued in operation. There were also purely inter-colliery lines such as that from Hanley Deep Pit to Shelton Bar via Granville crossings, the Midlands Co..s line from Apedale through Miry Wood to Podmore Hall and the line from Victoria colliery to Birchenwood, but that very interesting period when the locomotives and trains of several colliery companies roamed over certain of the former North Stafford branches had only recently come to an end.
In addition to the collieries at work, the following collieries were standing derelict but had not at this time been dismantled. They were most interesting sites to visit and comprised the Central colliery and the Meadow pits, both situated just off Dividy Road at Bucknall and Adderley Green respectively and New Hem Heath colliery at Chesterton. When working, this colliery was served by a siding from the Chesterton branch just west of the bridge under the A34 main road. It had no connection with the Hem Heath pit at Trentham. Completely derelict head-gears were standing at Ash Wood, Chatterley; the Sheriffe pit at Silverdale; Great Oak near Bignall End and at Crackley near Chesterton. The shaft below the latter was covered with a concrete slab and used as an air shaft in connection with Parkhouse colliery.
Examples of Headgears - drawn by Molly Mayhew from photographs by the author.
In the main, pit headgears were in 1928 mainly of steel or wrought iron, but there were still examples of wooden headgears at Glebe colliery, the Fair-lady pit at Madeley colliery, Jamage Main at Bignall Hill, the Railway pit and the Bush pit at Berry Hill colliery, and No. 4 and No. 6 pit at Birchenwood. No. 4 pit had a Goliath pump at the pithead, the only surviving example in the district. There were still several pairs of tandem pits at work in the area. The term “tandem” was applied to a pair of shafts with one cage in each, both shafts being worked by one winding engine. There were two types of tandem pits, (a) with the winding engine between the shafts and (b) with both shafts on the same side of the winding engine, the headgears being usually joined together in one big frame. There was one exception at Mossfield colliery where each headgear was separate. There was no example of type (a) drawing coal but there was a pair in working order in use as air shafts at Parkhouse colliery. Examples of type (b) still at work were to be found at Mossfield colliery with wooden headgears, Park Hall colliery also with wooden headgears, Silverdale colliery with steel headgears, and the Ash and Knowles pits at Berry Hill with steel headgears. The up-cast shaft at Norton colliery was originally a pair of tandem pits of type (b) later singled to one shaft with a brick built air lock but retaining the wooden tandem headgears. There were derelict tandem pits at New Hem Heath colliery, Chesterton, of type (a) with wooden headgears, and oi type. (b) at the Central colliery, Bucknall, with steel headgear, and at the Meadow pits at Adderley Green with wooden headgears. The only surviving tandem pit headgear in North Staffordshire at the present time is the steel headgear at Nos. 14 and 15 pits at Silverdale colliery.
The winding engines at the North Staffordshire collieries at this time were a varied and interesting lot. They ranged from the engines at the Harrison and Woodburn pits at Madeley which were dated 1867 to the latest engines installed at the Hem Heath pit of the Stafford Coal & Iron Co. at Trentham in 1924. There may be older engines than those of 1867 but they have been rebuilt so many times that little, if anything, of the original engines remain. The claim for the 1867 engines is that in 1928 they were in their original forma There were examples of winding engines from long closed pits which had been so drastically modified and rebuilt that they were then performing duties of a type totally different froth those for which they were originally built. At Whitfield colliery there were three examples of former winding engines in use as surface haulage engines for working steep dips at very great distances from the pit bottom. Two of these engines came from Chatterley and the third was from a Whitfield pit which was destroyed by fire and explosion in 1881.
In the main, however, winding engines were of the horizontal type contained in single storey engine houses but the two storey engine house with the winding engine on the second floor had made its appearance in North Staffordshire in 1915. This type of engine house was used in connection with a pit where a brick heap-stead was built round the headgear at banking level at about 20-feet or more above ground level enabling loaded tubs to run on a gentle gradient from the pit to the screens without any assistance, manual or otherwise. The banking level and the winding engine were of course at the same height above ground. This arrangement resulted in engine houses of considerably greater size than before with correspondingly higher headgears. The Hesketh pit at Whitfield has this arrangement and the lattice steel headgear, designed to carry a load of 150-ton, is 80-feet high from ground to pulley level, exclusive of the derrick for lifting the pulleys for renewal. This in turn called for more powerful winding engines and those at the Hesketh pit are a massive pair of horizontal engines made by Messrs. Worsley Mesnes of Wigan with 36" cylinders by 6' stroke. The winding drum is semi-conical so that the loaded cage leaves the pit bottom slower and more smoothly than the empty cage leaves the surface, thereby avoiding all “snatch” and thereby considerably lengthening the life of the winding ropes, and greatly minimizing the danger of breakage.
There were also three vertical winding engines still working in the district. The type was first introduced to North Staffordshire by C. J. Homer round about 1865 at No. 4 Pit of the Chatterley Iron Co. Mr. Homer was the mining engineer of the company and he appears to have had a particular liking for this type of winding engine and introduced the type to every colliery with which he came in contact. Consequently, engines of this type were to be found at the Institute pit at Whitfield colliery, the New Ubberley pit at Ubberley colliery, and after Mr. Homer severed his connection with the Chatterley Iron Co. and joined the service of the Duke of Sutherland, there were further examples at the Homer and Sutherland pits at Great Fenton, making a total of five known examples, of which those at Whitfield and Great Fenton were the last survivors, but there may have been more. As the name implies, the vertical winding engine stood with the cylinders on the ground and the winding drum high in the roof of the engine house. The engines at Whitfield were built on huge blocks of dressed stone and there was a zig-zag stairway on each side of the engine with landings at certain levels for oiling and maintenance purposes. The danger of fire was an ever present hazard in engine houses of this type as sparks from the wooden brake blocks when the brakes were applied to the winding drum were always liable to set fire to the roof timbers which were heavily impregnated with oil from the whirling drum and grease from the flailing winding ropes. Such a calamity did occur at the Institute pit in 1917 when the engine house roof was burnt off in a spectacular fire and the engines themselves severely damaged. To prevent the possibility of a repeat performance, the brickwork of the engine house was raised several feet and a new steel and asbestos roof fitted. With one exception, Ubberley, which was of plain brick and tile construction, Mr. Homer provided engine houses of great beauty for his vertical winding engines. They invariably had decorative brickwork with domed window frames and sills of stone. The Institute pit engine house was a particularly good example, but his window frames were recessed into the brickwork and a stone coping provided at roof level. The corners of the engine house from ground to roof level were of stone and the highly decorative brickwork was carried out in red and yellow brick. Surely they were the most beautiful engine houses ever built for colliery purposes. Unfortunately, the vertical engines and the engine houses which contained them have all now disappeared and not one example of this interesting, though not very numerous type, has survived.
An interesting variation of the vertical winding engine was to be seen at the Meadow pits in Dividy Road, where half the drum was in a well in the engine house floor and the cylinders and seat for the engine man up in the roof. He obtained his view of the pit head through the rope holes in the wall of the engine house. Another most interesting type of winding engine could still be seen at Berry Hill Top pits where the engine serving the drawing shaft had two winding drums, one behind the other instead of the usual one, resulting in an engine of unusual size. In this case, geared teeth on the outer edges of the drums came into contact with the teeth of a much smaller drum situated between the two winding drums which rotated in opposite directions when the engine was running thus raising and lowering the cages in the shaft. This engine, like the one at the Meadow pits, was the only one of its type, and both have now most unfortunately disappeared.
The remains of a small colliery still survived at Adams’ Greenfield pottery in Furlong Road, Tunstall. This colliery was unique in the fact that it was the only example ever known of a colliery inside a pottery and worked solely for the purpose of providing fuel for the pottery ovens. Though long out of use in 1928, the gaunt single wheel headgear was a familiar sight to Loop Line travellers between Tunstall and Pittshill stations. The most interesting feature about this colliery was the winding engine which had the drum outside the engine house; a rare example and the only one of its kind at this time.
There was at least one example of the use of electricity for raising and lowering a cage in a shaft. The Grange pit which stood on the slopes between Cobridge and the Trent & Mersey canal had been worked for many years by Robert Heath & Son as an ironstone pit drawing the Bassey Mine ironstone. The stone was calcined on the pit bank and the residue carted to Ford Green for use in the furnaces there. The pit had been abandoned for some years and was subsequently used in some connection with the near-by Racecourse colliery and fitted with an early type of electric winder for this purpose. The winder was very slow in operation, but it is interesting to record the use of electricity for winding purposes so many years ago.
A familiar feature of the colliery scene in those days was the wagon of the private owner. Every colliery company had its own fleet of wagons and many customers sent their own wagons to the collieries to collect their requirements. All these wagons had their own distinctive livery and style of lettering and they presented a varied and colourful scene as they stood in the colliery sidings. At Whitfield, in addition to the 8, 10 and 12 tonners of the company there could be seen wagons of the City of Birmingham Gas Dept., Imperial Chemical Industries, Guest, Keen & Nettlefold, Holyhead Co-operative Society, and of coal merchants Renwick Wilton of Torquay, Jones & Wynne of Denbigh, John Nichol of Macclesfield to name but a few. The private owner’s wagon has now disappeared from the colliery scene.
The mechanized method of coal getting had by this time reached North Staffordshire but had not then made the impact that it was to do during the next few years, consequently much of the coal was still hand-got but despite this, the annual tonnage produced by the North Staffordshire collieries was enormous and required an army of industrial locomotives of varying ages and types to deal with it, but there are members of the society far more competent than I to write on this subject. It also required a vast labour force to produce it, some idea of the size of which may be gained from the fact that at Whitfield alone, the average number of manual workers on the books for the whole of 1928 was 4402, of which number 249 were boys under the age of 16 years.
In 1928 there were pit ponies still working down the pits but happily there number was dwindling each year. In that year too, although the motor lorry had already made its appearance, great quantities of coal were still being distributed to home and pottery by horse and cart from numerous coal wharves situated through-out the length and breadth of the district and of which one company, Chatterley-Whitfield, operated no fewer than eight. Most interesting, too, is the fact that at this time there was still one colliers’ train running. This train ran for the day and noon shifts from Greenhead wharf in Burslem to Whitfield colliery with picking-up points at Pinnox and Pittshill wharf. In former years there were several such trains running but the Whitfield train was them last survivor of a very interesting facet of colliery working.
But even in those days, all was not well with the coal industry. The great trade depression had already cast its long and sinister shadow over the industry in general and the coal and iron trades in particular, and in 1928 collieries were on short time. In the early part of that year about one thousand men lost their jobs when Talk ’o‘ th’ Hill colliery closed down and later the same year the now legendary firm of Robert Heath & Low Moor Ltd. crashed taking with it the great iron and steel plants at Black Bull and Ford Green. Fortunately the collieries associated with both these places were rescued and carried on working under the new style of Norton & Biddulph Collieries Ltd., but three other industrial undertakings, the Midland Coal, Coke & Iron Co., Kidsgrove Collieries Ltd. and Park Hall Collieries (Cheadle) were destined to go out of business before the depression had run its course. In passing, it is interesting to note that the old firm of Robert heath & Sons was outstanding in that it built its own locomotives. These were saddle tank engines of 0-6-0 and 0-4-0 wheel arrangement of which one of the latter is now preserved at Shugborough.
Despite all this, however, these were the days when King Coal reigned supreme and feared no competition from whatever quarter it might come; the days too when Stoke-on-Trent was proud of its smoky image, fondly believing that smoking factory chimneys and belching potters’ ovens were the signs of a prosperous and industrious community. There were even smoky post cards to prove it. But no more. Since the last war there has been a great re-think on atmospheric pollution and “clean air” and “smokeless zones” became the slogans for the future. At first, no-one took much notice, but when these slogans were backed by law, the clean air movement gradually got under way and gained momentum to such an extent that for the coal industry the results on the industrial and domestic fronts were most serious, and when the railways, traditionally the industry’s best customer, turned from steam to diesel and electric traction the over-all effect was disastrous and resulted in the closure of collieries, locally and nationally, on an hitherto unprecedented scale in which many local landmarks disappeared and in the course of which the coal industry made a major, if somewhat unwilling, contribution to “The Changing Face of the Potteries”.
