Wesker26
  • Wesker26
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12 years ago
Hi guys.

I recently purchased this Colliery photo, while its a nice photo the only thing it had written on it was "Lancs" on its back. The only identifying feature which may help locate it is a sign top right which reads "6 FEET SIDE".

So not much to go on but with luck someone on here may know its location, any help appreciated.

🔗Personal-Album-299-Image-90166[linkphoto]Personal-Album-299-Image-90166[/linkphoto][/link]
staffordshirechina
12 years ago
No idea which pit but the nearground headframe leg on the right appears to be made of cast concrete when you look at the full screen image.
Maybe a clue?

Les
simonrail
12 years ago
I think the right-hand headgear leg is wooden hence the need for the metal strips to protect it. Just beneath the electric signaling gear fixed to that leg appears a face wearing a shawl suggesting a 'pit brow lass' and a location somewhere in Lancashire.
Yes, I'll have it - what is it?
staffordshirechina
12 years ago
If you look at the enlarged photo carefully you can see shuttering marks in the concrete. There are air bubble marks all up it. Between the steel protection corners there is a major shuttering joint line with a large chip out of the concrete.

Concrete legs would still need protection from everyday battering with tubs.

I agree about the face. Though it could be a hoodie!
Aditaddict
12 years ago
The "Ram's" seam was known as the "6 foot" around Tyldesley and Atherton and was worked to the west of the Pendleton fault , it was thicker in other areas and was known as the 7 foot and even the 9 foot elsewhere
a lot of pits that worked it were gone by the turn of the century but some that would have been around when that picture was taken were

Nook
Yewtree
St Georges
Shakerley
Great Boys
Gin Pit
Cleworth hall

all worked the Rams seam around the time of that photo
And that column looks very much like concrete to me also ,
in fact i can't see a single bolt anywhere on the columns;D
Morlock
12 years ago
No track, just skidplates on the '6 foot side'. Perhaps of lesser importance?
Roger the Cat
12 years ago
I notice that the 'boy' on the left of the picture is wearing a cap, waistcoat, neckscarf and clogs. The man by the gate seems to be wearing clogs as well. What period the picture is from? Traditional workclothes of this sort might still have been seen in the 20s and early 30s, suppose. The clogs suggest Lancashire. Reinforced concrete say before 1910 in an industrial frame? - I don't know.
Aditaddict
12 years ago
Reinforced concrete say before 1910 in an industrial frame? - I don't know.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenfinnan_Viaduct 

Built 1896 to 1898
staffordshirechina
11 years ago
It may be the six foot was not worked regularly therefore was not tracked up. It may be that the six foot was a different gauge and would not be compatible with the track.

If the seam was 6 feet high they sure look low height tubs!

The term 'six foot side' may well be that the six foot shaft inset can only be accessed from the cage on the right side of the shaft. This was often seen in less important seams passed by the shaft.

Also interesting to note is the striker plate signal device to the right of the shaft gates but also an electric bell on the headframe leg. Old and new together.

Les
tiger99
11 years ago
The Glenfinnan Viaduct was not reinforced concrete, because arches if designed properly only carry compressive loads, although the headframe structure must be reinforced, due to its length to cross section ratio, even if it is always in compression.

I have not been able to establish when reinforced concrete began to be used in the UK for applications like that, but am inclined to think that it may not be all that old. About 1920 would be my guess.
Trewillan
11 years ago
"tiger99" wrote:

....I have not been able to establish when reinforced concrete began to be used in the UK for applications like that, but am inclined to think that it may not be all that old. About 1920 would be my guess.



That sounds reasonable. I'm sure reinforced concrete was in common use by the 1920's, think of football stands and industrial buildings, concrete frames with brickwork in-fill.


davetidza
11 years ago
According to Alan Hill (2012) Coal: A Chronology for Britain (published by NMRS as British Mining 94) on page 199 he gives:

'At Bentley Colliery near Doncaster in South Yorkshire, a covered-in heapstead, of reinforced ferro-concrete was completed in 1911. It is believed that this was the first instance that ferro-concrete was used for this purpose anywhere in the mining world. The building measured 176 feet long by 34 feet wide and was 58 feet from the foundation level to the top of the flat roof and was built to the design of Mr. Mouchel'.

Unfortunately he does not give a reference for this fact.

He also later states that the first Koepe tower winder, in the UK was commissioned in May 1916 at the Plenmeller Colliery, Northumberland Coalfield.
Ty Gwyn
11 years ago
http://www.welshwales.co.uk/weaver.htm 

I remember them starting to savage this building before demolition by a firm called Mcavoys,lol.
Morlock
11 years ago
We used the derelict building for years for rudimentary SRT practice with blue lorry rope. 😉

http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/wpw006109?search=swansea&ref=43 

:offtopic:
Roger the Cat
11 years ago
Yup, South Wales definitely rings a bell, but I can't find my Welsh collieries book at the moment, but I'm sure that RC was used in a number of colliery buildings there certainly soon after WW1 if not a little before. In the back of my mind I think some early RC headgear was built there too.

The Glenfinnan Viaduct of course was noted for its clever use of non-reinforced mass concrete.
Roger the Cat
11 years ago
Found the book - 'Collieries of Wales - Engineering & Architecture - Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales'.

Britannia Colliery power house c1910-1914."To maintain a constant electrical current large flywheels were required on the Hgner converters, to lessen vibration and to prevent the whole structure subsiding into nearby earlier workings, these were sited on a very large reinforced concrete foundation. The new material of reinforced concrete was also used for the high circular coal-storage bunker. The Powell Duffryn engineer, Ivor Williams was commended in the contemporary engineering literature for its 'very artistic effect' "

Also at Bargoed Colliery c1913 "a reinforced concrete tower built to bunker coal". There is/was RC headgear at Point of Ayr - age not given.
Ty Gwyn
11 years ago
The RC headgear at Point of air was the No.3 shaft,sunk after 1947.
davetidza
11 years ago
'Coalmining in Salford: A Photographic Record' by Geoff Preece (1985) shows two concrete headgears in the Salford area: Newtown Colliery - headgear built in 1932 and Sandhole Colliery - headgear built in 1934-5.
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