Gin Pit was a

coal mine Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

operating on the

Lancashire Coalfield The Lancashire Coalfield in North West England was an important British Coalfield#Great Britain, coalfield. Its coal seams were formed from the vegetation of tropical swampy forests in the Carboniferous period over 300 million years ago. The Rom ...

from the 1840s in

Tyldesley Tyldesley () is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in Greater Manchester, England. Within the boundaries of the Historic counties of England, historic county of Lancashire, it is north of Chat Moss near the foothills of the Wes ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester. ...

then in the historic county of

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

, England. It exploited the Middle Coal Measures of the

Manchester Coalfield The Manchester Coalfield is part of the South Lancashire Coalfield, the coal seams of which were laid down in the Carboniferous Period. Some easily accessible seams were worked on a small scale from the Middle Ages, and extensively from the begi ...

and was situated to the south of the

Tyldesley Loopline The Tyldesley Loopline was part of the London and North Western Railway's Manchester and Wigan Railway line from Eccles to the junction west of Tyldesley station and its continuance south west via Bedford Leigh to Kenyon Junction on the Liver ...

History

Gin Pit's name suggests it, or a predecessor, had horse driven winding gear and was on the site of even older coal workings. The colliery, owned by John Darlington, was isolated from roads resulting in the building of a narrow gauge tramway worked by horses to transport coal from the pit to the

Bridgewater Canal The Bridgewater Canal connects Runcorn, Manchester and Leigh, Greater Manchester, Leigh, in North West England. It was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester. It was ...

at Marsland Green. In 1851 Darlington attempted to sell his colliery, tramroad, cranes and tipplers on the canal to the Bridgewater Trustees but the operation was sold to Samuel Jackson, a salt merchant and owner of a nearby colliery in

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population was 106,940. Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire and seat of the Borough of Bedford local government district. Bedford was founded at a ford (crossin ...

. The colliery's single shaft was deepened to the

Rams mine The Manchester Coalfield is part of the South Lancashire Coalfield, the coal seams of which were laid down in the Carboniferous Period. Some easily accessible seams were worked on a small scale from the Middle Ages, and extensively from the begi ...

at 375 yards between 1866 and 1872 by Astley and Tyldesley Coal and Salt Company. It had a pumping engine built by the Haigh Foundry. In 1896 Gin Pit employed 240 underground and 55 surface workers producing household and steam coal and coal to produce gas. The seams worked were the Crombouke and Six Foot mines. In 1923 the colliery had 237 underground and 57 surface workers. In common with many collieries on the Lancashire Coalfield, women, known as '' Pit brow lasses'' were employed on the surface to sort coal on the screens at the pit head. The colliery was linked to

St George's Colliery St George's Colliery, Back o't' Church, was a coal mine operating on the Manchester Coalfield after 1866 in Tyldesley, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. It was owned by Sir Edmund Buckley. The colliery was ...

for

ventilation Ventilation may refer to: * Ventilation (physiology), the movement of air between the environment and the lungs via inhalation and exhalation ** Mechanical ventilation, in medicine, using artificial methods to assist breathing *** Respirator, a ma ...

. The colliery became part of

Manchester Collieries Manchester Collieries was a coal mining company with headquarters in Walkden formed from a group of independent companies operating on the Manchester Coalfield in 1929. The Mining Industry Act 1926 attempted to stem the post-war decline in coal mi ...

in 1929. In 1947 when the collieries were nationalised Gin Pit became part of the No 1 Manchester Area of the

National Coal Board The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "ve ...

's (NCB) North Western Division. It ceased production in 1958. The surface structures of the colliery were all removed ahead of residential development in the early 2000s. An archaeological study was done by Oxford Archaeology North in 2005-2007 uncovering the remains of the Heapstead (the area at the top of the mineshaft, also known as the 'pit brow' or 'pit bank') these were recognised as a rare surviving example of the type in 2003.

Boat building

Gin Pit also had a boat building operation. The narrow wooden box boats were taken to the canalside at Marsland Green by rail.

Legacy

Gin Pit Village is a small settlement which is still inhabited, and the miners' welfare club is still open. A time capsule was buried by the Mayor of Wigan in 2003. After ten years of fund raising the Gin Pit A half pit wheel from Clipstone Colliery in Nottinghamshire was installed on the village green in 2013.

Citations

Bibliography

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External links