New London colliery site was used up until the 1980's by a coal merchants called Short Brothers, as children we played on the waste part of their site and played among what was left of the mine.

The surface loading equipment was still in reasonable condition, and part of the old railway cutting could be seen, as could many of the walls of buildings. Both shafts were capped with a thin concrete cap, but both could be accessed through the trapdoors which were not locked, and as children we regularly went inside them with torches. During our childhood we regularly saw the monitoring teams come and measure the settlement of the shaft fill, which was about 30' below the concrete cap. Through our childhood we saw these fills deepen to around 40', once they were topped up with roadstone and measured again.

Many other remains included the shale hill which was shale from the boilers, and we regularly played on this hill; it had a bobble on top which we undermined and let roll down the hill. It must have weighed several tonnes, but as children we did not know better, there was also the large stones on the site from the bombed Moorgreen church which was nearby.

The site is now an industrial estate and the old parts onwhich we played are now an off road bike course. The site is surrounded by fields as it was when we were younger, but it can stillbe accessed, although the shafts are now covered.