Hello,
I wonder if you can help me. Found your interesting web site on mines in the Derbyshire area.

I come from Hardy Barn, Shipley but have lived away from the area since the mid-1970's.

In the 1960's I remember cycling to see a lone, small steam engine still working in a yard that I think was to do with coal. We used to cycle through Shipley (Woodside pit area), past the southern end of Shipley Lake, then South not far from the Nutbrook then roughly West up a small road that ended up in Mapperley village - along this small road we would turn roughly South and reach the area that way.

I think it may have been somewhere around Head House Farm or slightly further South near 'The Brook' around SK443424 (on modern map I can see remnants of a railway line that may have served the area in question).

Do you have any idea what mine (if it was a mine) this was? Any historical information etc?

We used to call it 'Manners' rightly or wrongly!

Much appreciated.
Best regards
Jim Steele

Fionn
Many people from Ilkeston describe the area in (Jim Steele's) question as "Manner" or "over Manner" - a huge expanse of former collieries,railways,allotments, industry,canals,agriculture,ponds,streams,tips. Most is now gone, and opencast swept most of it, including our local cultural landscape,history, away.

I believe, from his references and timings, that he must be referring to a shunting engine (or engines) operating at the former West Hallam opencast coal disposal point. This operated intermittently from WWII until 1986, with a major upsurge in the early 70's, particularly to handle coal from the various Shipley and the Whitehouse (Mapperley) opencast sites.

The area had been a strategic stockpile of coal for decades.

Details of the engines (and photographs/history) having worked what was locally known as the "coal screens" can be found in Mark Higginson's publication "The Friargate Line" - ISBN 9513834 0 X 8.

The screens, infrastructure, stocking and waste-tipping grounds were developed on the site of the former West Hallam Colliery Co's pits and Whitehouse's ironworks close to the Mapperley Brook hamlet. The last West Hallam pit shut in the 1930s due to repeated flooding - the pit blamed the Nutbrook Canal Co for leakage., and the canal co. blamed the pit for subsidence causing the leakage.

There are numerous remains to the informed eye, which is quite unique in this area - between High Lane East and the Nutbrook. Had my friends UK Coal gained permission for the Shipley West opencast site, this would have all gone too. Cultural hertage apart, through natural regeneration, it has become one of the most significant wildlife sites within the county (maybe the country) for butterflies.

Roger Wood is a good source of information for this area in particular.

Rgds,
Joe.

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