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:
- Welton Hill Colliery was the third and last of the Duchy collieries to be sunk in the Welton area.
- The sinking of the shaft began in 1812, the first coal was found at a depth of 270 feet.
- To celebrate the occasion the workmen were given a free super at the Greyhound Inn Midsomer Norton.
- The completed shaft was 603 feet deep with a 6 feet diameter, two further shafts being sunk for pumping and ventilation.
- The colliery is noted as the second in Somerset to experiment with wooden cage guides in the shaft.
- The period after 1860 was a time of upheavals and alterations.
- From its inception the colliery had been served by a Somerset Coal Canal tramway, a self acting incline for the wooden colliery tubs was laid to a new sidings off the main railway line.
- Modernisation including overhaul of the beam pumping engine was carried out in 1866/8 and 10 years later the pit was raising an average of 20,000 tons per annum.
- Much needed development was considered and rejected like deepening the shaft in order to work the Farrington coal veins.
- The pit lost money every year from 1892 to 1897.
- The colliery closed towards the end of 1897, much of the plant sold in the following year.
- The house of the colliery manager at the pithead remains in use as a private dwelling, the weigh house for road traffic is now derelict as is the Cow Inn which once provided refreshments for the miners as they left the pit at the end of their shift.
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.
