Parkside Colliery

Parkside Colliery was a coal mine neat to the town of Newton-le-Willows, in the historic county of Lancashire, but from 1974, until its closure in 1993, it was in the metropolitan county of Merseyside. It was always described as being in Lancashire, and was the last deep coal mine operating in the Lancashire Coalfield upon closure.

Parkside Colliery
Location
Parkside Colliery
Location within Merseyside
LocationNewton-le-Willows
CountyLancashire (later Merseyside)
CountryEngland
Coordinates53.4485°N 2.6022°W / 53.4485; -2.6022
Production
ProductsCoal
History
Opened1957 (1957)
Closed1993 (1993)
Owner
CompanyBritish Coal

History

The sinking of the shafts started in 1957, with at least one fatality before any coal had been wound to the surface.[1] The site commenced operations in 1959, when the groundworks had been completed. Developing the site had cost the National Coal Board (NCB), over £13 million,[2] however, the first coal brought to the surface did not occur until 1964, seven years after the initial groundworks on site.[3] A pair of Koepe winding towers, both 200 feet (61 m) high, were installed above the shafts, both were made of concrete and destroyed fairly quickly after closure.[4]

Production from the mine peaked in the 1970s, when over 1,600 miners were employed at Parkside. On average, over 760,000 tonnes (840,000 tons) of coal was mined during this most productive time.[5] The deepest shaft was 882 yards (807 m),[6] and coal was mined using the longwall mining method.[7]

The mine suffered from methane in the coal faces, with it being piped above ground where it was used in the mine's boilers, or vented into the atmosphere. It was later piped direct to a chemical works in Warrington via a 7.5 miles (12 km) pipeline that carried between 12 and 15 million therms of gas per year.[8]

In its final years, the mine employed 750 to 800 people,[9] and its output was railed in merry-go-round trains from the site to Fiddlers Ferry power station on South Merseyside.[10][11]

Closure

The mine was ceased production in October 1992, but kept open on a care and maintenance programme whilst the 1990s pit closures were assessed by British Coal.[12] During the unworked period before final closure, a group of four women, led by Anne Scargill (the then wife of Arthur Scargill, staged an "occupy protest" against the pit closure.[13][14] They stayed underground for four days before resurfacing on 12 April 1993.[15] The story was later turned into a play, "Queens of the Coal Age", by Maxine Peake,[16] which was also later dramatised on Radio 4.[17]

The closure of the colliery caused 84 MPs to sign a motion protesting about the ending of coaling operations. They stated that the mine had been in profit for the last six years, and that a new seam had recently been opened which had involved the procurement of over £6 million worth of machinery to work the new seam.[18] Another issue raised was that of closure without proper consultation; British Coal announced the intention to close loss-making pits, and "Less than 36 hours later, at 7.15 am on Friday 23 October [1992], the president and secretary of the Parkside branch of the National Union of Mineworkers were called to the colliery deputy manager's office and told that, as from 7 pm that night, all coal production would cease. That was the total extent of the Secretary of State's 'genuine consultation.'"[19] The High Court decided in May 1993, that the colliery could legally be closed.[20] The rush to destroy the winding towers after the protest, left all the valuable equipment unrecovered below the surface.[21]

Parkside Colliery was the last working pit in the Lancashire Coalfield; when it closed, it was the last one in a history of coal-mining in the county that had stretched back for 700 years.[22]

The miners later took British Coal to court over the fact that they were made to accept the terms of redundancy, rather than being offered the chance to be redeployed to other coal mines.[23]

Regeneration

After closure, the site lay dormant, but it was elected as a possible Strategic Rail Freight Interchange (SRFI) by the rail industry with applications submitted covering an area of 7,700,000 square feet (715,000 m2) of warehousing, sidings and roads. This venture was withdrawn during the economic downturn of 2008.[24] The site was still being proposed as an SRFI in 2016,[25] with approval being granted in December 2019.[26]

Notable people
  • Frank Collier - professional rugby league player who would work in the pit during the week and play rugby for Wigan at the weekends.[27]
gollark: I don't use imperial units.
gollark: I agree.
gollark: This is GOOSE3.
gollark: [REDACTED]
gollark: Some of them are kind of blurry because digital zoom.

References
  1. "Parkside colliery, Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside". discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  2. Howell, David (1989). "3: The Containment of Radicalism". The Politics of the NUM: A Lancashire View. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p. 35. ISBN 0-7190-3022-6.
  3. "Forty years on song". infoweb.newsbank.com. 16 June 2010. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  4. Foster, Jonathan (17 April 1995). "King Coal secures place in history - The husks of a dead industry are to be given listed status. Jonathan Foster reports". infoweb.newsbank.com. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  5. "Coal: a record of an industry - Historic England". Google Arts & Culture. slide 7. Retrieved 26 February 2020.CS1 maint: location (link)
  6. "Coal in the North Western area". www.dmm.org.uk. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  7. Bell, Fred G; Donnelly, Laurance J (2006). Mining and its impact on the environment. Abingdon: Taylor & Francis. p. 148. ISBN 0-415-28644-1.
  8. "Parkside Colliery (1957-1993)". nmrs.org.uk. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  9. Stothard, Peter, ed. (19 August 1992). "Pit in peril - Parkside Colliery". The Times. p. 4. ISSN 0140-0460.
  10. Merrick, Rob (28 February 2007). "We need pounds 400m rail terminal on site, claims MP". infoweb.newsbank.com. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  11. "House of Commons Hansard Debates for 27 Oct 1993". publications.parliament.uk. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  12. Arlidge, John (9 April 1993). "Women stage sit-in at threatened pit". The Independent. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  13. "Parkside mine protester, 52, dies". BBC News. 4 November 2013. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  14. Love, Catherine (5 July 2018). "Queens of the Coal Age review – Maxine Peake shines light on women's fight for the mines". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  15. Stothard, Peter, ed. (13 April 1993). "Women end pit sit-in - Parkside colliery, Merseyside". The Times. p. 2. ISSN 0140-0460.
  16. Marlowe, Sam (5 July 2018). "Theatre review: Queens of the Coal Age at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester". The Times. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  17. "Peake practises role of Mrs Scargill". The Yorkshire Post. 29 October 2013. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  18. "CLOSURE OF PARKSIDE COLLIERY, NEWTON-LE-WILLOWS (No. 1) - Early Day Motions". edm.parliament.uk. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  19. "Parkside Colliery (Hansard, 26 October 1992)". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  20. Stothard, Peter, ed. (31 May 1993). "Pit protest continues - Parkside Colliery near St Helens, Merseyside". The Times. p. 2. ISSN 0140-0460.
  21. "'Dark day which haunts me'". St Helens Reporter. 6 June 2013. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  22. "Glimmer of hope for ancient pits". Lancashire Telegraph. 9 June 2000. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  23. "Mine leader wins dole fight". Lancashire Telegraph. 9 May 1996. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  24. "Former Parkside Colliery, Newton-le-Willows Parkside Regeneration LLP" (PDF). iema.net. January 2018. p. 12. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  25. "Parkside Logistics and Rail Freight Interchange Study" (PDF). sthelens.gov.uk. AECOM. August 2016. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  26. Griffiths, Niall (30 January 2020). "'A crackpot scheme': Borough MP speaks out on St Helens council decision to build distribution centre on former colliery". Leigh Observer. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  27. McGregor, Adrian (10 November 1990). "Boys from the coalface strike gold". Sydney Morning Herald. p. 78. ISSN 0312-6315.
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