Gin Pit 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 ...

operating 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 fir ...

from the 1840s in

Tyldesley Tyldesley () is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in Greater Manchester, England. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire, it is north of Chat Moss near the foothills of the West Pennine Moors, southeast of Wigan ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority, combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: City of Manchester, Manchester, City of Salford, Salford ...

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 Lancashi ...

, England. It exploited the Middle

Coal Measures In lithostratigraphy, the coal measures are the coal-bearing part of the Upper Carboniferous System. In the United Kingdom, the Coal Measures Group consists of the Upper Coal Measures Formation, the Middle Coal Measures Formation and the Lower Coal ...

of the

Manchester Coalfield 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 ...

and was situated to the south of the

Tyldesley Loopline The Tyldesley Loopline was part of the London and North Western Railway's Manchester and Wigan Railway line from Eccles to the junction west of Tyldesley station and its continuance south west via Bedford Leigh to Kenyon Junction on the Live ...

History

Gin Pit's name suggests it, or a predecessor, had horse driven winding gear and was on the site of even older coal workings. The colliery, owned by John Darlington, was isolated from roads resulting in the building of a narrow gauge tramway worked by horses to transport coal from the pit to the

Bridgewater Canal The Bridgewater Canal connects Runcorn, Manchester and Leigh, Greater Manchester, Leigh, in North West England. It was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester. It was ...

at Marsland Green. In 1851 Darlington attempted to sell his colliery, tramroad, cranes and tipplers on the canal to the Bridgewater Trustees but the operation was sold to Samuel Jackson, a salt merchant and owner of a nearby colliery in

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst ...

. The colliery's single shaft was deepened to the

Rams 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 begin ...

at 375 yards between 1866 and 1872 by Astley and Tyldesley Coal and Salt Company. It had a pumping engine built by the Haigh Foundry. In 1896 Gin Pit employed 240 underground and 55 surface workers producing household and steam coal and coal to produce gas. The seams worked were the Crombouke and Six Foot mines. In 1923 the colliery had 237 underground and 57 surface workers. In common with many collieries on the Lancashire Coalfield, women, known as '' Pit brow lasses'' were employed on the surface to sort coal on the screens at the pit head. The colliery was linked to

St George's Colliery St George's Colliery, Back o't' Church, was a coal mine operating on the Manchester Coalfield after 1866 in Tyldesley, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. It was owned by Sir Edmund Buckley. The colliery was ...

for

ventilation Ventilation may refer to: * Ventilation (physiology), the movement of air between the environment and the lungs via inhalation and exhalation ** Mechanical ventilation, in medicine, using artificial methods to assist breathing *** Ventilator, a m ...

. The colliery became part of

Manchester Collieries Manchester Collieries was a coal mining company with headquarters in Walkden formed from a group of independent companies operating on the Manchester Coalfield in 1929. The Mining Industry Act of 1926 attempted to stem the post-war decline in coal ...

in 1929. In 1947 when the collieries were nationalised Gin Pit became part of the No 1 Manchester Area of the

National Coal Board The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "v ...

's (NCB) North Western Division. It ceased production in 1958.

Legacy

Gin Pit Village is a small settlement which is still inhabited, and the miners' welfare club is still open.

Boat building

Gin Pit also had a boat building operation. The narrow wooden box boats were taken to the canalside at Marsland Green by rail.

References

Citations

Bibliography

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External links

Coal Mining, Gin Pit, Manchester Collieries, 1935 Manchester Archives+ Gin Pits by Roger Hampson
{{coord, 53.5034, -2.4695, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Coal mines in Lancashire Mining in Lancashire Underground mines in England Tyldesley