History – Lancashire Mining Museum

OUR HISTORY

Apart from the steam winding engine and headgear, the museum houses many exhibits, not least of which is the collection of 28 colliery locomotives, the largest collection of its type in the United Kingdom.

The colliery began its life in 1908 to exploit coal reserves in the south Lancashire Coalfield. Had it not been for the increasing demand for coal, at that time, the project would not have been viable. The coal seams at Astley Green are very deep and overlain by 100 feet of wet and unstable ground. These factors made the sinking of the shaft a very expensive proposition. The novelty of many of the requirements tested the ingenuity of the engineers during the construction, so much so that a paper, on the sinking of the shaft, was presented to the Institute of Mining Engineers.

The colliery had a lifespan of only 62 years, finally closing its gates in 1970. Because of its short and relatively recent history, a considerable number of written and photographic records have survived. This has enabled a detailed study to be made of the construction of the colliery and its subsequent operation.

TIMELINE

May 1908

Pilkington Colliery Company. First sod cut to begin sinking No.1 shaft.

1912

No.1 shaft bottoms out at a depth of 814 meters. Main winding Engine and Head Gear installed enabling coals to be produced from the Crumbouke Six Foot and Trencherbone mines.

1919

No. 2 shaft completed. Second smaller engine installed along with lighter Head Gear to service No. 2 shaft.

1928

Amalgamated with other Local Collieries becoming part of the Manchester Collieries Consortium.

June 7th 1939

An Underground Explosion claimed the lives of 5 men and injured 5 others.

January 1st 1947

Nationalised.

National Coal Board (N.C.B.). Finacial Investment, Re-Organisation and Modernisation.

April 3rd 1970

Colliery classified as Uneconomic resulting in closure. Shafts capped and site partially cleared.

Early 1970s

Site leased by The Red Rose Live Steam Group. Remnants of site mothballed for a few years and then managed on a Care and Maintenance basis.

1st December 1982

Re-named The Red Rose Steam Society Ltd. Site managed as a Charity on a Care and Maintenance basis. Operating as a local Amenity and Museum.

2013

Winding Engine restored and is operational for the first time in 43 years.

25th Nov 2022

Re-named The Lancashire Mining Museum Ltd. Site managed and run as a Charity. Operating as a local Amenity, Museum and Educational facility to date.

THE ENGINE HOUSE

The No.1 Engine house was the main building project after initial work on the shaft sinking, the roof girders were being placed in December 1910, the travelling crane of 20 ton capacity which ran along the top of the walls already being in position and in use handling the various engine parts.The engine contracts for this and the No.2 engine were let to Yates & Thom of the Canal Ironworks, Blackburn, who had also supplied the initial boilers to the site. The ancilliary gear was contracted out to Fraser & Chalmers of Erith, Kent, a G.E.C. subsidiary. The total cost for the winding house in 1910 was £4133 ( £400,000 today). The winding engine was completed at a total cost of £9677 (Approx £1.035 million today).

The winding engine which served the No 1 shaft is the largest surviving colliery winding engine of its type in Europe. It has four cylinders in twin tandem compound arrangement developing 3300 horsepower at 58 rpm. The engine was installed in 1912 and took two years to complete. It is connected to a bicylindro-conical drum which in turn was connected to the headgear pulleys to wind up the coal and wind down the miners and maintenance supplies. Most of the remainder of the colliery buildings and a second shaft with its gear have been destroyed and the winding gear is the last surviving example in the Lancashire coalfield.

The pit closed in 1970 and although the Winding House, Winding Engine and Headgear were saved, it was not until 1983 that the site was leased to the Mueseum and work started on saving and restoring the winding engine and winding house and getting it working again. This has been achieved by a small dedicated team of volunteers over the last 37 years and it is now in working condition. The engine finally ran for the first time in 2013 almost 30 years to the day when the Lancashire Mining Museum took over the site, although now running on compressed air, it runs at regular intervals through the year. Keep an eye out on Facebook and the Website for running days.

THE HEADGEAR

Astley Green Colliery Museum has the only surviving headgear on the Lancashire Coalfield. It is made from wrought iron lattice girders with rivetted plates at the joints. It has two large and one small wheel mounted at the top. It is nearly 30 metres (98 ft) high and was built by Head Wrightson of Stockton-on-Tees in 1910-11 for Astley Green Colliery. The sheaves were 20 ft. in diameter and the whole frame weighed 120 tons.

The site is protected as a Grade II Scheduled Monument. An English Heritage report puts the headgear in the at risk category and unless repairs and maintenance can be carried out urgently it is likely that it will be lost forever. The structure has been deemed too unsafe for access and unless sufficient funds can be obtained to repair and paint the wrought iron, the trustees feel the only alternative would be demolition. The pit closed in 1970. Plans are in place to upgrade the museum to make it a centre for community activities and to provide training in various skills that are being lost.

The head gear has suffered with deterioration and is now in need of significant repair to avoid any further deterioration. The headgear was placed on the English Heritage at Risk register in 2010. The report indicates it is in poor condition with slow decay with no solution agreed.

Approaches have been made regarding grants and support for the repair and maintenance of the Head Gear and although the project meets the criteria for funding, organisations would need proof that the museum and site would have a future, and could be developed to deliver positive benefits to the community in which it operates.

List Entry Number: 1017061
Scheduled Monument

1939 DISASTER

June 6th, 1939

A gob fire was first reported at 12.30 a.m, and the night shift of 1000 men was withdrawn from the pit face. Forty men, officials and trained fire fighters were left to fight the fire. They made such progress that by 4 a.m. it was possible for the morning shift to descend. Between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. 1000 men went down the shaft to the various mines which make up the Astley Pit. During the morning men were withdrawn from certain sections, and a party of officials, including the men killed and injured, descended. They were working in C panel of the Crombouke Mine, where the gob fire had occurred earlier in the day. Men continued to work in the Rams mine on a lower level, and at 1.30 p.m. news of an explosion reached them.

The Red Rose Trustees, who run the Lancashire Mining Museum @ Astley Green, want to commemorate the lives lost and the acts of incredible bravery when an underground fire broke out at the mine in 1939.

Five men lost their lives in a series of explosions and a further four were injured. The fatalities included the pit manager who died while leading the firefighting operations. Rescue attempts were hindered by the build-up of toxic gasses below ground but many men risked their lives to bring victims and the bodies up to the surface. Astley as one of the newer pits to have been sunk (in 1908), was employing 2,000 men at the time of what was the first multiple serious accident to happen there.

The incident is perhaps not as well known as other high-profile local mining disasters, such as those that occurred at Westhoughton’s Pretoria Pit, Golborne and Bedford Colliery, when casualties were much higher. But the team at the Astley mine now wants to rectify this.

Red Rose Trustees chairman Trevor Barton MBE said: “We all know about the Pretoria Pit disaster and the one in Golborne and yet there was one in Astley too. “I just can’t believe this disaster took place and there’s absolutely nothing to mark it. “We want to build a permanent memorial to these people. “Some remarkably brave things went on underground to save people’s lives. “We’ve given ourselves two years and hopefully by the 80th anniversary of the disaster we will have something that is fitting.”

The memorial will stand on site at the Higher Green Lane pit, which has now been preserved to give visitors an idea of what the mining industry was really like.

Discussions on the design of the memorial and how it will be funded are still at an early stage. The team behind the commemoration efforts would particularly like to track down any living relatives of colliers who worked at the Astley pit at the time of the disaster.

SUPPORT US

The museum and site depend on donations from everyone to survive, no matter how large or small, without which the museum would fold. With no central funding to support it, the museum relies solely on the generosity of its visitors and supporters. Every penny received is used on the upkeep of the museum and its exhibits and no-one is paid for the work they do in keeping the museum running.

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OPENING HOURS

Tuesday 1.00pm – 5.00pm
Thursday 1.00pm – 5.00pm
Saturday 1.00pm – 5.00pm
Sunday 1.00pm – 5.00pm

Contact

Lancashire Mining Museum
Higher Green Lane
Astley
Manchester
M29 7JB

info@astleycolliery.org
01942 895841 (answer machine only)