The Lancashire Coalfield was one of the most prolific in England. The number of shafts sunk to gain coal number several thousand, for example, in 1958, Wigan undertook a survey of old shafts and located 500.
In 1995 following several years of redevelopment across the Wigan Metropolitan Borough by the British Geological Survey (BGS), in association with the planning consultants Roger Tym & Partners, the list had grown to over 1000 with no real idea of the total.[1] Similar surveys in Bolton and Manchester have also produced long lists of undocumented shafts.
The proliferation of mines resulted from its accessibility at the start of the Industrial Revolution and the climate which was ideal for cotton mills. Coal fed the boilers of the cotton mill towns of Ashton-under-Lyne, Blackburn, Bolton, Burnley, Bury, Darwen, Oldham and Rochdale as well as the Rossendale Valley. The first industrial revolution coal mines supplied coal locally and to Liverpool, along the River Mersey via the Sankey Canal. On the Manchester Coalfield, the early collieries were those of the Duke of Bridgewater in Worsley, where the Bridgewater Canal was built to transport coal from his mines to Manchester.[2]
Lancashire miners used terms in different ways to other coal mining areas.[3] A mine in Lancashire refers to a coal seam, so the Doe mine refers to the Doe seam. The term pit was used for the shaft sunk to the access the mine and the term colliery was used to describe the whole of the surface area including the headgear, wash-houses, offices, trams etc. An example is:
Garswood Hall Colliery consisting of three pits: the number 9, the number 2 and the number 3 working the Ravin, Orrell Four Foot and Arley mines.
In 1880, the Mines Inspector reported 534 coal pits in the Lancashire field. In 1947 when the industry was nationalised, there were 108 collieries Parkside Colliery in Newton le Willows was the last pit to be sunk in Lancashire, production started in 1960 and was the last to close in 1993.[4]
The list has been compiled from the official reports of the Mines Inspector and lists of mines produced by National Coal Board and the Coal Authority.
The list gives the name of the pit which by convention did not usually use the word pit after it followed by the location and date of closure if known, e.g. Chadderton, Chadderton is the Chadderton Pit located in Chadderton.
