Gibfield Colliery was a

coal mine Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

owned by

Fletcher, Burrows and Company Fletcher, Burrows and Company was a coal mining company that owned collieries and cotton mills in Atherton, Greater Manchester, England. Gibfield, Howe Bridge and Chanters collieries exploited the coal mines (seams) of the middle coal measure ...

in Atherton, then in the historic county of

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...

, England. A shaft was sunk at Gibfield to the

Trencherbone mine The Manchester Coalfield is part of the South Lancashire Coalfield, the coal seams of which were laid down in the Carboniferous Period. Some easily accessible seams were worked on a small scale from the Middle Ages, and extensively from the begi ...

in 1829 by John Fletcher next to the

Bolton and Leigh Railway The Bolton and Leigh Railway (B&LR) was the first public railway in Lancashire, it opened for goods on 1 August 1828 preceding the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) by two years. Passengers were carried from 1831. The railway operated inde ...

line which opened in 1830. The colliery was served by sidings near Bag Lane Station. On 11 February 1850, workers descended the pit and discovered the presence of gas which they tried to disperse with their jackets. The gas fired at the flame of a lighted candle causing an explosion which killed five men and burned several others. In 1872 the colliery was expanded when a second shaft was sunk to access the

Arley mine The Manchester Coalfield is part of the South Lancashire Coalfield, the coal seams of which were laid down in the Carboniferous Period. Some easily accessible seams were worked on a small scale from the Middle Ages, and extensively from the beg ...

at 1233 feet. A third shaft was sunk after 1904 accessing nine workable coal seams between the Arley and the Victoria or Hell Hole mines and the original Gibfield shaft was used for ventilation. In common with many collieries on the

Lancashire Coalfield The Lancashire Coalfield in North West England was an important British coalfield. Its coal seams were formed from the vegetation of tropical swampy forests in the Carboniferous period over 300 million years ago. The Romans may have been the f ...

, women, known as '' Pit brow lasses'' were employed on the surface to sort coal on the screens at the pit head. The first pit-head baths in the country were built at Gibfield in 1913. Gibfield closed in 1963 and the site was cleared.

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Bibliography

{{refbegin *{{citation , last=Davies , first=Alan, title=Atherton Collieries, publisher=Amberley, year=2009, isbn=978-1-84868-489-8 *{{citation , last=Hayes , first=Geoffrey, title=Collieries and their Railways in the Manchester Coalfields , publisher=Landmark , year=2004, isbn=1-84306-135-X {{refend {{coord, 53.5286, -2.5048, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Coal mines in Lancashire Mining in Lancashire Underground mines in England Atherton, Greater Manchester

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