I was given your name from James Findlay as I have been documenting the Blinkinsopp mine and miners before it closes. I have placed some of these images at the following address if you are interested in using them on your site, all I ask is that you place a "Copyright Joel Porter" against the images.

I have been trying to get some interest locally to exhibit the portraits, or even publish. I have had some interest recently from a small public gallery in Lancaster that is interested in around 6 of these. I have kept James informed in any progress on this front and continue to pursue the documentation of coal mines in general when I can.

Regards,

Joel

Fionn,
Ventilation Furnace Cupola I have a reasonable photograph of this piece of local mining history, taken at Lound Hall in April 2001. If interested, you could scan this for use on your Website, and I could give you a little more detail on it than is included in the word document that I forwarded earlier. Since RJB Mining (or UK Coal as they are now known) recently dismantled and sold the Woodside Colliery winding gear (and incidentally realising this as a PR blunder, proceeded to blame other parties), the furnace cupola is one of the few reminders of the Shipley mining industry, albeit now located some 40 miles away. For the time being anyway!

Assuming you haven't seen it, the local history publication "A History of Mining in the Heanor Area" is excellent value for money source of local reference material. A few more comments on current information in your Website: 1) "A short history of coal" - coal deposits were laid down 3-4 hundred million years ago not 3-4 million. (Ooops! I will sort that)

2) "Local pits" - Woodside Colliery actually stopped cutting coal in 1966. 1961 was the year coal winding from the shafts (Woodside Nos. 2&3) ceased, with all production then being via the drift (by then known as Woodside No.1) opened in the late 1940's to exploit the shallower seams. The original Woodside No.1 (now somewhere underneath the American Adventure car park) was replaced by Nos. 2&3, with completion of sinking to the Kilburn seam in 1899. At that time the Shipley Kilburn coal was reckoned (locally anyway) to be the best house coal available in the country, and was the seam in which my grandad Henshaw spent all his working life as a hewer. The dust took its toll to such a degree he had to stop work when he was only in his early 40s - and no compensation in those days. As the Kilburn seam became worked out at Woodside, the 2&3 shafts were used to access some of the shallower seams, thus acquiring their names "Piper" and "Low Main". Although interlinked for ventilation purposes etc., they were operated as separate production entities, i.e. production workers operating from the Piper shaft didn't access workings via the Low Main shaft and vice-versa. The Piper shaft winder was the one recently removed and sold by RJB Mining, despite it remaining as a pumping station and preventing all manner of hydrogeological problems both in active and abandoned workings for miles around. It was supposed to have remained as a local mining monument, in addition to being an asset to pump maintenance, which is still required to this day.

Prior to closure, rumours had been circulating about the future (or lack of it) at Woodside. These were scotched by management on the Friday, with assurances of 20 years more work. However, closure was announced on the following Monday. 20 years more work may have been over optimistic, yet by 1979 with work ongoing, 5.4 million tons of coal had been got via opencast methods within Woodside's take, and much of this at depths normally accessed by deep mines, a pattern currently seen throughout the country. The evidence is that available reserves probably lay between the two extremes, but it was obviously much cheaper to access these by opencast methods, and also offset the considerable pumping costs incurred at Woodside. The one consolation in those days was that there were other pits in the area for those miners wanting redeployment.

Rgds, Joe Henshaw

I have been talking with some men that have worked with ponys at other pits so I will send you some stories from them and also a story from Lynmouth/Ellington pit which involved a large fire and a brave rescue attempt to save the ponys !

Ellington I believe was the last mine to use ponys underground and not too long ago 5-6 years (?)

Hello Fionn
I have just come across your web site - Midnight and see you have quoted a few details of pits from my old Cotmanhay page. As far as they go they are correct. However I intend to put up a new set of pages ere too long and may include more detail both from my own and my family`s mining experience and various friends. There will be the few photographs, some of which I notice with a smile have arrived unacknowledged elsewhere. Cameras did not come as a first priority so much has vanished without trace. I will take another look at your pages at a more reasonable hour.
Regards, Dr. Colin Pounder.

Dr Pounder's site has since gone but he has some articles on the BBC WW 2 Peoples War Site.

Would you like to swap links with us? Roy & Angela For the Ponies, Volunteers and Trustees at Fforest Uchaf. Please feel free to visit our little website at www.pitponies.co.uk and tell your friends about us. We need you to help us, help them.

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