Chanters Colliery

Chanters Colliery was a coal mine which was part of the Fletcher, Burrows and Company's collieries at Hindsford in Atherton, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England.^[1][2]

Geology

Chanters Colliery exploited the Middle Coal Measures which were laid down in the Carboniferous period and where coal is mined from seams between the Worsley Four Foot and Arley mines.^{[nb 1]} The seams generally dip towards the south and west and are affected by small faults. The Upper Coal Measures are not worked in this part of the coalfield.

History

Chanters Colliery in Hindsford was sunk in 1854 by John Fletcher^[3] in an area where coal had been mined for centuries from small shallow pits. One of these pits, the Gold Pit which closed before 1800 was reputed to have had a steam engine for pumping water out of the mine. The colliery was modernised and developed after 1891 when two shafts were sunk first to the Trencherbone mine at 1121 feet and deepened to the Arley mine at 1832 feet in 1896. These shafts accessed 12 coal seams.^[4]

Coal screens and a washery were built, and steel headgear and a new winding engine installed by 1904.^[5] The colliery was continually developed and modernised and lasted until 1966.^[6]

References

Notes

1. ^ In this part of Lancashire a coal seam is referred to as a mine and the coal mine as a colliery or pit.

Footnotes

1. ^ NW Division map, cmhrc.co.uk, http://www.cmhrc.co.uk/site/maps/lnw_map1.html, retrieved 2010-10-28 
2. ^ Fletcher, Burrows & Co. Ltd., Durham Mining Museum, http://www.dmm.org.uk/company/f1002.htm, retrieved 2011-02-18 
3. ^ North and East Lancashire (collieries A-G), Coal Mining Heritage Resource Centre, http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cmhrc/lom69nel.htm, retrieved 2011-04-03 
4. ^ Hayes 2004, p. 39
5. ^ Townley 1995, p. 270
6. ^ Hayes 2004, p. 45

Bibliography

• Hayes, Geoffrey (2004), Collieries and their Railways in the Manchester Coalfields, Landmark, ISBN 1-84306-135-X 
• Townley, C.H.A.; Appleton, C.A., Matthew, Smith, C.E., Peden (1995), The Industrial railways of Bolton, Bury and the Manchester Coalfield, Part Two, The Manchester Coalfield, Runpast, ISBN 1-870754-32-8 

Coordinates: 53°31′08″N 2°28′15″W / 53.5188°N 2.4708°W / 53.5188; -2.4708