Hi. I am new to this site but am fascinated with some of the items written about the pit ponies and I am writing asking for help with a project I am working on for Bransby Home of Rest for Horses, Lincoln, Lincolnshire.
We are redesigning our education area and eventually our visitor centre and I am in charge of the History section. Part of what I am researching is how horses were used in the past in a working capacity. Having put a letter in the Mansfield local paper asking for information and photos, I have spoken to some lovely helpful people, 2 of which were pit pony boys. One of the gentlemen told me about his life with the ponies back in the mid 50's at Donisthorpe in Leics. Another man told me about the ponies he worked with at Rufford collliery in 1946-47. He actually lent me the head protector from the pony he drove called Dandy. I wold love to get a photo of Dandy for the gentleman as he has no photos left of his time with the ponies. I think he was enjoying talking to me about his time but all too soon I had to go.
I would really like to gather information together about certain horses, ponies or mules from any colliery anywhere - mainly as I feel, although there is plenty to read about how the animals were looked after and the work they did. I cannot find a specific place where individual stories of the ponies and their lads are. I would love to get this info together with photos if possible - but names of animals, their characters and little funny / sad moments would be great to gather together
I am frightened that it is all going to get lost before the only people that can relay these amazing stories are no longer with us as they are ' a dying breed ' - not my words but the words of one of the gentlemen that I spoke to yesterday. I agree with him, so can anyone help ?
I would love any memorablila that anyone may have also for loan to the charity. Both the head protectors I have so far are completelt different so its interesting to see if anyone still has any equipment they have no room to display.
Promise my next post wont be as long - I'm just geting excited about doing this for those who are left and could read all I gather together. 🙂

Hi Plantpotpuppy

Nice to hear of your interest. All of the British metal mines were worked with horses. They were used primarily for pulling the ore/waste out of the mine and taking timber and roofing materials into a mine.
Some mines had special acess for the ponies, usually some sort of spiral and in certain parts of mines cobbles were laid between the rails so that they had extra grip.
The last working mine with Horses in the Pennines was the Blackdene Mine at Ireshopeburn and I am sure you will find photos of tubs being pulled out of this mine.
Ther uses of horses included using them as a primary energy source. They were tethered and went round in a circle where the harness arrangements included turning a large drum which had rope on it.The rope descended a shaft and kibbles -like large buckets were pulled up and down the shaft.
This arrangement is known as a Horse-Gin. Often the word Horse was omitted and the shaft simply known as a Gin.
Hope this helps

I've found this photo of some retired horses in the Loftus Ironstone mine.
I'll have a dig around for anything else I might have.

🔗Loftus-Iron-Mine-User-Album-Image-66007[linkphoto]Loftus-Iron-Mine-User-Album-Image-66007[/linkphoto][/link]

I take you have read quite a good little book:

Harnessed: colliery horses in Wales by Ceri Thompson.

National Museum of Wales, ISBN 978-0-7200-0591-2

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Not sure if this clip helps you any ...BUT it does make interesting watching none the less

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/mining/6923.shtml 

I remember the reporters voice but wouldnt have remembered his face, I was 11 at the time. Its interesting to actually see the ponies underground doing the job I have read so much about. Many thanks :thumbsup:

Hi John. many thanks for your reply. Do you mind if I give thanks and quote you when I print out the bit about the horse gin ? Never heard of that thankyou. Please tell anyone else about my project. Jo

Am ordering it now, many thanks. Jo :thumbup:

Lovely photo. thankyou for taking the time to answer my query. Will save the photo before I forget where it came from. i am sending so many e-mails I am struggling, but managing just, to remember who told me what and when ! please pass on my request to anyone else you may think will be able to help. If they live within Nottinghamshire/Leics area i will possibly be able to travel for a chat. Thanks again . Jo :thumbup:

Worth a look on you tube too .....











A rich seam of info .....Some of the comments are also well worth reading too

That was lovely thanks. one of the videos in the middle got me quite emotional as even from a distance you could tell the horse doesnt seem to have any character. Bless it. Have heard of the pony sanctuary and seen their website. Thankyou. Jo

Thinking about it ....

It might be worth contacting the NCM (National coal mining museum) if you havn't already

http://www.ncm.org.uk/ 

They're over near to Wakefield And possibly have some info regarding the use of equines in a mining enviroment (in fact they have ponies on the premises,though as i understand the ones they have,are not retired pit ponies but rescue cases .

They are a very helpful bunch over there and i am sure if they can help you then they will

There are quite a few photos of ponies at work in the North Pennine mines, many of which are in the possession of the Beamish museum. There's a book called "The Life and Work of the Northern Lead Miner" (if I remember rightly) by Arthur Raistrick which reproduces several of them. The ponies used there were mostly Dales or Dales-Clydesdale crosses, while coal mines tended to use smaller breeds like Shetland or Siberian ponies.

Then there's use of horse power in the various types of stone mine.....

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My Late Grandmother had a trip down Easington Colliery in the 1920s and remembered feeding the pit ponies carrots underground in their stables. I also believe that Levant Tin mine Cornwall was the only Cornish mine to use them underground. 🙂

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Found it on amazon thankyou. Just bought 2 other books so will put it on the list. Jo

Levant and Easington. Thankyou. 2 more to read up on. Am making a list thats getting longer ! cheers Jo :thumbup:

Photo of a somewhat ramshackle Cornish horse gin from Geevor Mine's website:

EDIT - the site is cropping the image, to view it in full right-click on and select "view image"

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Also, there are some 16th-century images of horse-powered mining equipment here taken from Agricola's "De Re Metallica":
http://www.btinternet.com/~stephen.henley/agricola/book6.htm 

Specifically, image 15 shows a whim gin used for winding, images 16 and 33 show cog-and-rung gins both winding and driving pumps, while image 47 shows a horse-powered treadmill powering the bellows at a smelt mill. I've always thought the last one had a lot of artistic licence in its depiction and would probably result in a broken leg if you actually tried to do this in real life, though the expression on the horse's face reminds me of a particularly greedy Dales colt we bred....

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As well as horse whims and gins on the surface there were some underground ones as well.

Rampgill and Smallcleaugh mines at Nenthead in Cumbria and Allt y Crib mines at Talybont near Aberystwyth in Wales are ones I know of; with extant remains at Rampgill and Allt y Crib (photos on this site).

Dave

Yes, come to Caphouse (National Coal Mining Museum for England), we've got a lot on pit ponies, including stable equipment, harness, limmers etc. competition programmes, award rosettes...some on display other availble in storage for research. If you want to talk to a curator best wait until September as things are a tad busy with school holiday until the 5th...best to phone a couple of days ahead so we can make sure you're in the diary and don't have a wasted journey - call 01924 848 806. Don't forget Big Pit either, their curator is a top man :thumbsup:
As mistericeman says we've got ponies, unfortunately we lost our last true pit pony, Patch, about four weeks ago due to old age.