Coal Mining Subsidence · AditNow Community

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ICLOK
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie Topic Starter

15 years ago

Found these two classic images showing Coal Mining Subsidence in the West Mids, We have seen some recent images of Subsidence collapses from metal mining (Cornwall) but have we had anything like this in recent years in the Coal areas of the UK where buildings have literally part or fully collapsed along with holes opening up and underground fires?
🔗Personal-Album-856-Image-43461[linkphoto]Personal-Album-856-Image-43461[/linkphoto][/link]
🔗Personal-Album-856-Image-43462[linkphoto]Personal-Album-856-Image-43462[/linkphoto][/link]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh Creeper!!!!!

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JR
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

In 1999 there was a story of a large hole appearing in the garden of a house in Moxley I believe. Near Wednesbury.
Quote
"Mining subsidence, which has taken its toll on many buildings across central England, has also made its mark in Darlaston. In 1999, a council house on the New Moxley housing estate collapsed down a disused mineshaft while its occupants were on holiday. The adjoining house also had to be knocked down"

Link to full item http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlaston (it's Wikipaedia, so it must be right).

Edit
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1748549.stm to a more recent article.

sleep is a caffeine deficiency.

Morlock
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

Not recent but the canal in the Leigh to Wigan area is on a 50 foot embankment in places, it used to be level with the surrounding fields!
If I remember correctly 80 feet of coal was removed over the years and the surface subsided by 50 feet.

jagman
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

It's commonplace, unless somebody is injured it seldom makes more than the local paper.

Morlock
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

"jagman" wrote:
It's commonplace, unless somebody is injured it seldom makes more than the local paper.

Not a lot of it about in South Wales considering the amount of coal taken out.
Probably due to the workings mainly being from valley bottoms out under the hills.
There are considerable numbers of "Bottomless" fissures on some hilltops though!
The many shallow mines that worked the narrow seams were pillar/stall and mostly packed with waste stone.

carnkie
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

If we pop across to America for a moment the most famous case is Centralia, Pennsylvannia and the town that disappeared because of a mine fire. For the interesting history: http://www.offroaders.com/album/centralia/centralia.htm

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.

Morlock
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

A few good videos of Centralia amongst the 40+ on Youtube. 🙂

Dean Allison
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

Nice pictures there. It happens all the time up here, but as Jagman says it never makes the news. Except for last year when a major working opened up and part of the Newcastle Metro train lines subsided 😉

There is a field near me which is right over the old Hartley Mains colliery workings and there is sections permanently fenced off as they regularly open up.

When me old man was working at Choppington back in the 60s, the manager would have them winning coal out of old abandoned workings, and often they would mine way past the limit. There was a joke about being able to see the rabbits in their warrens in some of the old districts there, they were so near the surface. Those fields have since sunk about 30 or 40 feet in places and what was a field is now a valley 😮

Morlock
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

South Wales problems are mostly poorly capped shafts and open adits with Myrther Tydfil being a problem area.

http://www.newswales.co.uk/index.php?section=Environment&F=1&id=11914

patch
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

#10

This is still going on. At Egremont in Cumbria in 2005 an old shaft collapsed into an abandoned iron ore mine leading to the evacuation and subsequent demolition of nine bungalows.

Don't wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel, stride down there and light the damn thing yourself

ICLOK
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie Topic Starter

15 years ago

#11

Very interesting this... the Centralia link was very good indeed... Where I grew up and also the area I live was well known for the large numbers of small single shaft shallow collieries and bell pits yet I can't recall events such as these occurring or making the news... sure we've got subsidence and there were some odd instances of severe but nothing like the answers raised so far in the thread, perhaps the workings were not extensive enough... but they were certainly shallow, one field was excavated for house building revealing masses of pillar and stall workings less than 8 feet under the soil!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh Creeper!!!!!

jagman
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

#12

"ICLOK" wrote:
but they were certainly shallow, one field was excavated for house building revealing masses of pillar and stall workings less than 8 feet under the soil!

I know of a house in Cumbria above a coal mine that is very shallow.
Shallow enough for the miners not to work that area when the house owners where at home because they could hear the television in the sitting room above......

ICLOK
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie Topic Starter

15 years ago

#13

Omigord... I'm surprised they didn't complain...

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh Creeper!!!!!

jagman
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

#14

"ICLOK" wrote:
Omigord... I'm surprised they didn't complain...

The house owners never twigged. The miners only dug coal out while the house owners were out.
The mine is long closed now.

pickering man
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

#15

I seem to remember that when the bbc radio cleveland studio was built they hit mine workings 😢

Manxman
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

#16

The BBC TV studios in Newcastle are built on top of an old coal drift - whilst under construction in 1986 photographs were taken showing the concrete support pillars (lots of them) extending down into the partially flooded workings.

pickering man
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

#17

"Manxman" wrote:
The BBC TV studios in Newcastle are built on top of an old coal drift - whilst under construction in 1986 photographs were taken showing the concrete support pillars (lots of them) extending down into the partially flooded workings.

I stand corrected I remember the pics of the old workings with the new concrete pillars stuck through them

ICLOK
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie Topic Starter

15 years ago

#18

I'd forgotten I'd taken these until my wife reminded me tonight. This house / cottage was deliberately rebuilt with all its tie bars, bulges and downhill brick work at the Black Country Museum to deliberately show how a subsidence area affected houses in the Black Country!
🔗Personal-Album-856-Image-43712[linkphoto]Personal-Album-856-Image-43712[/linkphoto][/link]
🔗Personal-Album-856-Image-43711[linkphoto]Personal-Album-856-Image-43711[/linkphoto][/link]
🔗Personal-Album-856-Image-43710[linkphoto]Personal-Album-856-Image-43710[/linkphoto][/link]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh Creeper!!!!!

cobba
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

#19

still a few houses with tie rods in around Cannock.remember riding around s.derbyshire nand leicestershire 20 years ago and thought the subsidence was worse over there

cobba

pacef8
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

#20

I forget the name of the house and i have seen pics of it online but there is shaft open in the ladies garden and you can have tea standing in the kitchen after. Somewhere in the lancs area i,m sure.

probable best not give the exact location 😉