Baggeridge Colliery was a colliery located in Sedgley, West Midlands England.
The Baggeridge Colliery was an enterprise of the Earls of Dudley, whose ancestors had profited from mineral extraction in the Black Country area of the West Midlands for several centuries. The site of Baggeridge Colliery, adjacent to Gospel End Village and more than a mile west of Sedgley village centre, was significant since it was just outside the geological boundary that delineated the South Staffordshire Coalfield. This boundary is known as the Western Boundary Fault of the South Staffordshire Coalfield. In an edition of the Engineer from 1869, [1] a description of a visit by the Dudley and Midland Geological Society to the Earl of Dudley's No. 3 pit at the Himley Colliery is given. The visit took place 'to examine the peculiar formations of strata connected with the above fault.' The journal article speculated that coal might be found across the boundary at 'a much greater depth' than in the existing coalfield but also stated that 'it is the opinion of most geologists that there is every evidence of coal existing beyond the fault, and it will no doubt be found by the never-tiring energy of the Earl of Dudley's agents' [1]
In 1896, a trial borehole was sunk by Vivian's Boring Co. Work on the colliery's first shaft started in February 1899 and a thick seam of coal was discovered in 1902. As predicted, the coal seams were to be found at a greater depth than those exploited over the centuries in the Black Country region of the West Midlands. [2] A second shaft was sunk in 1910. By 1912 the two shafts were complete and production commenced. [2]
The colliery was served by a branch of the Earl of Dudley's Pensnett Railway a network of mineral lines that linked many industrial sites in the west of the Black Country. The link was constructed by the GWR in 1907.
The pit, which closed on 2 March 1968 [3] was the last remaining pit in the Black Country, marking the end of an era stretching some 300 years. [4] Despite this, WMPTE continued to provide short additional workings on service 564 (Wolverhampton to Sedgley) for a number of years after the pit closure.
For the last two years of its existence, it was situated within the boundaries of Seisdon as part of a local government reorganisation. It also remained part of Staffordshire after 1974, when Sedgley became part of the new West Midlands county.
The former coalfields are now the site of Baggeridge Country Park, landscaped with a lake, wooded areas and walkways; work commenced in 1981 and the new country park was officially opened by The Princess Anne on 17 June 1983.
The Black Country is an area of England's West Midlands. It is mainly urban, covering most of the Dudley and Sandwell metropolitan boroughs, with the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall and the City of Wolverhampton sometimes included. The towns of Dudley and Tipton are generally considered to be the centre.
Sedgley is a town in the north of the Dudley district, in the county of the West Midlands, England.
Silverdale is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, west of Newcastle-under-Lyme. It is a self contained ward of Newcastle Borough Council returning 2 Councillors. Historically, the village was dominated by the coal industry and records indicate coal was mined in the area as long ago as the 13th century. The last colliery, Silverdale Colliery, closed in 1998. Brick-maker Ibstock also operate a large clay quarry next to the former colliery.
Agecroft Colliery was a coal mine on the Manchester Coalfield that opened in 1844 in the Agecroft district of Pendlebury, Lancashire, England. It exploited the coal seams of the Middle Coal Measures of the Lancashire Coalfield. The colliery had two spells of use; the first between 1844 and 1932, when the most accessible coal seams were exploited, and a second lease of life after extensive development in the late 1950s to access the deepest seams.
The Somerset Coalfield in northern Somerset, England is an area where coal was mined from the 15th century until 1973. It is part of a larger coalfield which stretched into southern Gloucestershire. The Somerset coalfield stretched from Cromhall in the north to the Mendip Hills in the south, and from Bath in the east to Nailsea in the west, a total area of about 240 square miles (622 km2). Most of the pits on the coalfield were concentrated in the Cam Brook, Wellow Brook and Nettlebridge Valleys and around Radstock and Farrington Gurney. The pits were grouped geographically, with clusters of pits close together working the same coal seams often under the same ownership. Many pits shared the trackways and tramways which connected them to the Somerset Coal Canal or railways for distribution.
Wet Earth Colliery was a coal mine located on the Manchester Coalfield, in Clifton, Greater Manchester. The colliery site is now the location of Clifton Country Park. The colliery has a unique place in British coal mining history; apart from being one of the earliest pits in the country, it is the place where engineer James Brindley made water run uphill.
The South Yorkshire Coalfield is so named from its position within Yorkshire. It covers most of South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and a small part of North Yorkshire. The exposed coalfield outcrops in the Pennine foothills and dips under Permian rocks in the east. Its most famous coal seam is the Barnsley Bed. Coal has been mined from shallow seams and outcrops since medieval times and possibly earlier.
Chatterley Whitfield Colliery is a disused coal mine on the outskirts of Chell, Staffordshire in Stoke on Trent, England. It was the largest mine working the North Staffordshire Coalfield and was the first colliery in the UK to produce one million tons of saleable coal in a year.
The Cheadle Coalfield is a coalfield in the United Kingdom. Centred on the town of Cheadle, Staffordshire, and its outlying villages it lies to the east of Stoke-on-Trent and the much larger North Staffordshire Coalfield. The area has been mined for many years, with documentary evidence from Croxden Abbey citing coal mining in the 13th century.
Baggeridge Country Park is located within the South Staffordshire district of Staffordshire, England. Its entrance is on the A463 just west of Gospel End, a small Staffordshire village just beyond the borders of the Wolverhampton, Gornal and the surrounding Metropolitan Borough of Dudley.
Coal mining in the United Kingdom dates back to Roman times and occurred in many different parts of the country. Britain's coalfields are associated with Northumberland and Durham, North and South Wales, Yorkshire, the Scottish Central Belt, Lancashire, Cumbria, the East and West Midlands and Kent. After 1972, coal mining quickly collapsed and had practically disappeared by the 21st century. The consumption of coal—mostly for electricity—fell from 157 million tonnes in 1970 to just 587,000 tonnes in 2023. Employment in coal mines fell from a peak of 1,191,000 in 1920 to 695,000 in 1956, 247,000 in 1976, 44,000 in 1993, 2,000 in 2015, and to 360 in 2022.
The Lancashire Coalfield in North West England was an important British coalfield. Its coal seams were formed from the vegetation of tropical swampy forests in the Carboniferous period over 300 million years ago.
The Ingleton Coalfield is in North Yorkshire, close to its border with Lancashire in north-west England. Isolated from other coal-producing areas, it is one of the smallest coalfields in Great Britain.
The Astley and Tyldesley Collieries Company formed in 1900 owned coal mines on the Lancashire Coalfield south of the railway in Astley and Tyldesley, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. The company became part of Manchester Collieries in 1929 and some of its collieries were nationalised in 1947.
Tyldesley Coal Company was a coal mining company formed in 1870 in Tyldesley, on the Manchester Coalfield in the historic county of Lancashire, England that had its origins in Yew Tree Colliery, the location for a mining disaster that killed 25 men and boys in 1858.
Cleworth Hall Colliery was a coal mine operating on the Manchester Coalfield after 1874 in Tyldesley, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England.
The Racecourse Colliery is an exhibit located at the Black Country Living Museum.
Coal mining played an important part in the history of the Black Country area immediately west of Birmingham, England. It was the basis for the area's industrial development in the nineteenth century; without coal there was insufficient power. Commentators spoke of the Black Country as a great coalfield, and of the earth turned inside out by all the mining activity. Most of the mines were not large scale, but small rough and ready pits similar to the Racecourse Colliery exhibit at the Black Country Living Museum. There were as many as five or six hundred small pits like this exploiting the seams of the South Staffordshire coalfield.
The Burnley Coalfield is the most northerly portion of the Lancashire Coalfield. Surrounding Burnley, Nelson, Blackburn and Accrington, it is separated from the larger southern part by an area of Millstone Grit that forms the Rossendale anticline. Occupying a syncline, it stretches from Blackburn past Colne to the Yorkshire border where its eastern flank is the Pennine anticline.
Bank Hall Colliery was a coal mine on the Burnley Coalfield in Burnley, Lancashire near the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. Sunk in the late 1860s, it was the town's largest and deepest pit and had a life of more than 100 years.