Haydon

About This Location:

• The Kilmersdon Colliery Company signed the lease with Lord Hylton on Christmas Day 1873, sinking of the shaft began on February 1874.
• The first shaft was for pumping water, the work on the winding shaft with a 10 feet 6 inch diameter began in October 1876.
• Both shafts reached their completed depth of 286 yards at the end of 1877.
• The first coal was sold by April 1878.
• To get the coal to the GWR Radstock to Frome railway line a self acting incline was laid, the agreement being signed on September 1st 1877.
• Initially horses were used to take the railway trucks to the top of the incline, the first locomotive arriving in 1896.
• The Pecket locomotive was sent to the colliery in 1929 and remained there until the pit closed.
• The shafts were deepened in 1900 to a depth of 427 yards.
• 1928 the pits first conveyor face was started.
• Pithead baths were installed in 1934.
• The steam winding engine survived at Kilmersdon until August 12th 1963 when an electric winder from Scotland was installed.
• The Colliery was one of the last two pits to close in Somerset in 1973, with its sister pit Writhlington.

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. 

The Figure in Haydon