Gibfield Colliery

Pit brow lass from Wigan on the Lancashire Coalfield.

Gibfield Colliery was a coal mine owned by Fletcher, Burrows and Company in Atherton, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England.[1][2]

A shaft was sunk at Gibfield to the Trencherbone mine in 1829 by John Fletcher[3] next to the Bolton and Leigh Railway line which opened in 1830.[4] The colliery was served by sidings near Bag Lane Station. In 1872 the colliery was expanded when a second shaft was sunk to access the Arley mine at 1233 feet. A third shaft was sunk after 1904 accessing nine workable coal seams between the Arley and the Victoria or Hell Hole mines and the original Gibfield shaft was used for ventilation.[5]

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.[6] The first pit-head baths in the country were built at Gibfield in 1913.[7] Gibfield closed in 1963 and the site was cleared.[8]

References

  1. ↑ NW Division map, cmhrc.co.uk, retrieved 2011-02-18
  2. ↑ Fletcher, Burrows & Co. Ltd., Durham Mining Museum, retrieved 2011-02-18
  3. ↑ North and East Lancashire (collieries A-G), Coal Mining Heritage Resource Centre, retrieved 2011-04-03
  4. ↑ Hayes 2004, p. 46
  5. ↑ Hayes 2004, p. 48
  6. ↑ Davies 2009, p. 58
  7. ↑ Gibfield Colliery Pithead Baths still open for business (pdf), wlct.org, p. 4, retrieved 2011-02-18
  8. ↑ Hayes 2004, p. 50

Bibliography

  • Davies, Alan (2009), Atherton Collieries, Amberley, ISBN 978-1-84868-489-8 
  • Hayes, Geoffrey (2004), Collieries and their Railways in the Manchester Coalfields, Landmark, ISBN 1-84306-135-X 

Coordinates: 53°31′43″N 2°30′17″W / 53.5286°N 2.5048°W / 53.5286; -2.5048

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