The Bristol Coalfield is a geologically complex coalfield in the west of England. Comprising the coal-bearing rocks arranged around the Coalpit Heath Syncline and Kingsdown Anticline, it extends beneath the eastern parts of the city of Bristol and northwards through southern Gloucestershire. [1] The coalfield is sometimes referred to together with the Somerset Coalfield, which lies to its south, as the Bristol and Somerset Coalfield. There are also two outlying coal-mining areas, the Severn Coalfield and the Nailsea Basin which are described below.
Several coal seams are named in the sequence in the Bristol Coalfield. The seams are listed stratigraphically with the uppermost (youngest) at the head of the list and the lowermost (oldest) at the foot. [2] Not all seams are named, nor are all seams present at any one location.
Coal mining in Bristol was first recorded in the 13th century, when licences were issued to dig for coal in Kingswood Chase. By the late 17th century coal mining in the area had grown substantially, supplying cheap coal to the city and its fuel-intensive industries. [3]
In 1793, William Matthew's reported in his history and directory of Bristol that:
"The advantages arising to the inhabitants from having plenty of coal so near to the City are very great, as well from its use to families who burn it profusely, and to poor people who are rendered warm and comfortable by it, in the winter, as to the various manufactories of glass, sugar, spirits, iron and brass, in which there is a great consumption of it. There are pits all around the City, in Gloucestershire at Kingswood; and in Somerset, at Bedminster, Ashton, Nailsea and Brislington. But the most copious supply is from Kingswood, in which there are a great number of pits and colliers houses, which last are so frequent and numerous, that Kingswood has from the neighbouring hills the appearance of being one vast, rural suburb of Bristol. There are several pits within half a mile of the Town, at Upper and Lower Easton and near Lawrence-hill. To those that choose to fetch their coals from pit, they are sold there at 3d a bushel for large, and 2d a bushel for small. They are brought to Bristol in Wagons, carts and on horses, and are sold to the inhabitants at 14d the sack which holds two bushels and a half." [4]
By 1854 the Bristol coalfield was producing 1,050,000 tons per year from seventeen major pits. However, the industry declined from this time, with employment in the Bristol district shrinking from 3,500 men in the 1870s to less then 500 by the late 1930s. This was despite the fact that the late 19th century and early 20th century was a period in which coal production in Britain as a whole increased substantially. The last Bristol colliery closed in 1963. [5]
Within the Upper Coal Measures of the outlying 'Avonmouth Basin' are the Avonmouth No 1 and No 2 coals. This is sometimes known as the Severn Coalfield. It lies several miles to the west of the main Bristol Coalfield and extends under the Severn Estuary as far as Portskewett. It is also largely obscured by thick deposits of estuarine alluvium. Coal was also worked on a very small scale in the rocks of the Clapton-in-Gordano inlier just to the south of the Severn Coalfield.
In the small 'Nailsea Basin' 7 miles (11 km) to the west of Bristol, a sequence of Coal Measures rocks are preserved within a syncline. These rocks are connected at depth with those of the Somerset Coalfield; though it lies close to the main body of the Bristol Coalfield, it is not connected with it. Two seams are known from the upper Coal Measures and twelve from the Lower and Middle Coal Measures within this 'basin'. Only those indicated thus - w - were worked to any great extent: [6]
Bedminster is a district of Bristol, England, on the south side of the city. It is also the name of a council ward which includes the central part of the district.
The geology of Shropshire is very diverse with a large number of periods being represented at outcrop. The bedrock consists principally of sedimentary rocks of Palaeozoic and Mesozoic age, surrounding restricted areas of Precambrian metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks. The county hosts in its Quaternary deposits and landforms, a significant record of recent glaciation. The exploitation of the Coal Measures and other Carboniferous age strata in the Ironbridge area made it one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution. There is also a large amount of mineral wealth in the county, including lead and baryte. Quarrying is still active, with limestone for cement manufacture and concrete aggregate, sandstone, greywacke and dolerite for road aggregate, and sand and gravel for aggregate and drainage filters. Groundwater is an equally important economic resource.
Grovesend is a village in the community of Grovesend and Waungron, City and County of Swansea in Wales. The community has a population of 1,131.
The city of Bristol, England, is divided into many areas, which often overlap or have non-fixed borders. These include Parliamentary constituencies, council wards and unofficial neighbourhoods. There are no civil parishes in Bristol.
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.
The geology of Wales is complex and varied; its study has been of considerable historical significance in the development of geology as a science. All geological periods from the Cryogenian to the Jurassic are represented at outcrop, whilst younger sedimentary rocks occur beneath the seas immediately off the Welsh coast. The effects of two mountain-building episodes have left their mark in the faulting and folding of much of the Palaeozoic rock sequence. Superficial deposits and landforms created during the present Quaternary period by water and ice are also plentiful and contribute to a remarkably diverse landscape of mountains, hills and coastal plains.
The Bristol and North Somerset Railway was a railway line in the West of England that connected Bristol with Radstock, through Pensford and further into northern Somerset, to allow access to the Somerset Coalfield. The line ran almost due south from Bristol and was 16 miles (26 km) long.
Gloucestershire is one of the most geologically and scenically diverse counties in England, with rocks from the Precambrian through to the Jurassic represented. These varying rock-types are responsible for the three major areas of the county, each with its own distinctive scenery and land-use - the Forest of Dean in the west, bordering Wales, the Cotswolds in the east, and in between, the Severn Vale.
The Cumberland Coalfield is a coalfield in Cumbria, north-west England. It extends from Whitehaven in the south to Maryport and Aspatria in the north.
The Leicestershire and South Derbyshire Coalfield in the English Midlands is one of the smaller British coalfields. The two areas are sometimes separately referred to as the South Derbyshire Coalfield and the Leicestershire Coalfield. All of the worked coal seams are contained within the Lower and Middle Coal Measures which are of Upper Carboniferous age.
The Coalbrookdale Coalfield is a coalfield in Shropshire in the English Midlands. It extends from Broseley in the south, northwards to the Boundary Fault which runs northeastwards from the vicinity of The Wrekin past Lilleshall. The former coalfield has been built on by the new town of Telford.
The Canonbie Coalfield is a small and largely concealed coalfield at Canonbie in the south of Scotland. A comprehensive survey by Peach and Horne was published in 1903. Canonbie colliery was worked until 1920, and another mine at Archerbeck continued until 1942.
The Midgeholme Coalfield is a coalfield in Midgeholme, on the border of Cumbria with Northumberland in northern England. It is the largest of a series of small coalfields along the south side of the Tyne Valley and which are intermediate between the Northumberland and Durham Coalfields to the east and the Cumberland Coalfield to the west. Like the other small coalfields to its east, this small outlier of the Coal Measures at Midgeholme occurs on the Stublick-Ninety Fathom Fault System, a zone of faults defining the northern edge of the Alston Block otherwise known as the North Pennines. It is recorded that coal was being mined at Midgeholme in the early seventeenth century. In the 1830s coal trains were being hauled from Midgeholme Colliery along the Brampton Railway by Stephenson's Rocket. The early workings have left a legacy of spoil heaps, bell pits, shafts and adits. There is no current coal production. However in January 2014, Northumberland County Council gave planning permission for the open-cast extraction of 37,000 tonnes of coal at Halton Lea Gate. This may open the way for other applications to mine the coalfield. In 1990 a proposal to mine reserves of 60,000 tonnes of good-quality coal at Lambley, Northumberland was rejected, but the prospect for a successful application has now changed, since the Planning Inspector allowed the development to proceed at Halton Lea Gate on appeal.
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 beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century until the last quarter of the 20th century. The Coal Measures lie above a bed of Millstone Grit and are interspersed with sandstones, mudstones, shales, and fireclays. The Lower Coal Measures occupy the high ground of the West Pennine Moors above Bolton and are not worked in the Manchester Coalfield. The most productive of the coal measures are the lower two thirds of the Middle Coal Measures where coal is mined from seams between the Worsley Four Foot and Arley mines. The deepest and most productive collieries were to the south of the coalfield. The coalfield is affected by the northwest to southeast aligned Pendleton Fault along the Irwell Valley and the Rossendale Valley anticline. The Coal Measures generally dip towards the south and west. Numerous other smaller faults affect the coalfield. The Upper Coal Measures are not worked in the Manchester Coalfield.
The Coal Measures Group is a lithostratigraphical term coined to refer to the coal-bearing succession of rock strata which occur in the United Kingdom within the Westphalian Stage of the Carboniferous Period. The succession was previously referred to as the 'Productive Coal Measures'. Other than in Northern Ireland the term is now obsolete in formal use and is replaced by the Pennine Coal Measures Group, Scottish Coal Measures Group and the South Wales Coal Measures Group for the three distinct depositional provinces of the British mainland.
In lithostratigraphy, coal measures are coal-bearing strata, with the term typically applied to European units of the Upper Carboniferous System.
The Pennine Coal Measures Group is a lithostratigraphical term referring to the coal-bearing succession of rock strata which occur in the United Kingdom within the Westphalian Stage of the Carboniferous Period. In formal use, the term replaces the Coal Measures Group as applied to the succession of coal-bearing strata within the Pennine Basin which includes all of the coalfields of northern England and the English Midlands. It includes the largely concealed Canonbie Coalfield of southern Scotland and the coalfields of northeast Wales and the minor Anglesey coalfield.
The geology of the Gower Peninsula in South Wales is central to the area's character and to its appeal to visitors. The peninsula is formed almost entirely from a faulted and folded sequence of Carboniferous rocks though both the earlier Old Red Sandstone and later New Red Sandstone are also present. Gower lay on the southern margin of the last ice sheet and has been a focus of interest for researchers and students in that respect too. Cave development and the use of some for early human occupation is a further significant aspect of the peninsula's scientific and cultural interest.