Pendlebury Colliery, usually called Wheatsheaf Colliery after the adjacent
public house
A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...
, 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
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 ...
after 1846 in
Pendlebury
Pendlebury is a town in the City of Salford, Greater Manchester, England. The population at the 2011 Census was 13,069. It lies north-west of Manchester, north-west of Salford, Greater Manchester, Salford and south-east of Bolton.
Histori ...
near
Manchester
Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...
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.
The colliery, sunk in 1846, was owned by Andrew Knowles and Sons and had two ten foot diameter shafts 24 yards apart.>
The colliery originally had pitch pine timber
headgear
Headgear, headwear, or headdress is any element of clothing which is worn on one's Human head, head, including hats, helmets, turbans and many other types. Headgear is worn for many purposes, including protective clothing, protection against t ...
and a
winding engine
A winding engine is a stationary engine used to control a wire rope, cable, for example to power a hoist (mining), mining hoist at a pit head. Electric hoist controllers have replaced proper winding engines in modern mining, but use electric motor ...
supplied by
John Musgrave & Sons
John Musgrave & Sons was a company that manufactured stationary steam engines. It was founded in 1839 by John Musgrave and his son, Joseph, at the Globe Ironworks, in Bolton, historically in Lancashire, England.
In 1854 the company supplied a t ...
of Bolton that operated until 1944.
The colliery was ventilated by furnace until the 20th century when ventilation fans were installed.
Wrought iron
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25 for low carbon "mild" steel. Wrought iron is manufactured by heating and melting high carbon cast iron in an ...
boilers to raise steam for powering pumps, air compressors and haulage were originally sited near the bottom of No.2 shaft, the upcast shaft. The shaft bottom was reached at 1,775 feet. The colliery accessed several coal seams including the
Rams
In engineering, reliability, availability, maintainability and safety (RAMS)Crumbouke and
Doe 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 ...
s.
In 1896 the colliery employed 640 men underground and 165 surface workers while in 1923 there were 563 underground and 172 surface workers.
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 and 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 ...
in 1947. The colliery was connected by tunnel to Newtown Colliery in 1957 but closed in June 1961.
The colliery was situated on the north-east side of Bolton Road (A666), Pendlebury between Carrington Street and City Walk on what is now the Wheatsheaf Industrial Estate.