This post is part of a series called Somerset Coal Miners
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- High Littleton
- Paulton
- Midsomer Norton – High Street
- Midsomer Norton
- Midsomer Norton Station
- Haydon
- Radstock
- Chilcompton
- Westfield
- Camerton
- Clandown
- Coleford – Coal Barton
- Coleford – Mackintosh
- Holcombe
- Old Mills
- Writhlington
- Timsbury
- Somerset Coal Mining – History!
- Paulton Basin
- Farrington Gurney
- Tunley
- Westfield Old Pit Road
- Newton St Loe
- Clandown
- Brandy Bottom
About This Location:
- New Rock colliery was sunk around 1819.
- The pit wound all its coal up a shaft 1,182 feet deep with a 4feet 6inches diameter well into nationalisation in 1947.
- One cannot help admiring the skill of the early miners who could sink so deep a shaft with such a small diameter.
- Strap Colliery was 10feet 6inches in diameter, by March 1868 the depth was 663 feet, by 1871 it had reached 1000 feet.
- Mining in the Great Course Vein of coal began in March 1869 by 1871 150/200 tons per week were being raised.
- By 1874 the shaft had reached its final enormous depth of 1,874 feet the deepest shaft in Somerset.
- Because a rail connection never arrived the pit closed in January 1879.
- A brick cap was put on the shaft and it was covered over with earth in case there should ever come a time when the pit could be reopened.
- New Rock colliery originally was not very successful and was closed in 1858, reopening with new owners in 1959.
- The new owners looked at deepening the shaft but opted for driving an incline from the pit bottom running downwards for 650 yards at a gradient of 1 in 2.5.
- The three deck cage carrying three 10cwt tubs per lift limited the output, in 1935 ranging from 3,500 to 5,000 tons per month.
- Under the National Coal Board in 1947 further improvements were made, notably the installation of an electric winding engine.
- The NCBs Mendip Development to overcome the limited capacity of the of the New Rock shaft and incline was to open up the old Strap Pit shaft.
- Exploration began in early 1954, the exact site of the shaft was unknown.
- It’s rumoured an old lady who moved away from Chilcompton some years earlier was contacted, she could remember her father talking about the location of the shaft and it was found.
- The shaft was opened up and the water pumped out of the old workings.
- It was decided that roles of the two shafts be reversed with the now called Mendip Pit would wind all the coal from New Rock, it was possible to increase the output to 90,000 tons per year.
- Coal ploughs were introduced in 1962, but with the problems of labour shortages coupled with the disadvantages of transporting coal by road ment New Rocks future began to look increasingly black. Both shafts ceased operation in September 1968.
- The Somerset Miners Welfare Trust President Michael Eavis worked on the face at New Rock Colliery.
About Somerset Coal:
We believe that Somerset coal was first discovered by the Romans. They were in the West Country 43AD, and there are references to it being used at the Temple of Minerva in Aqua Sulis (Bath). The coal used was probably found in coal outcrops around Stratton-on-the-Fosse, and transported along the Roman road – the Fosseway – for use in Bath.
Early coal workings, from coal outcrops, were largely in the Nettlebridge Valley, around Stratton-on-the-Fosse and Coleford, and to the North of the Coalfield, around High Littleton. It is estimated that output in 1500 was estimated about 10,000 tons a year, and that this had increased 10-fold by the late 1600s…
For even more information and history of Somerset Coal, Click Here.