Gin Pit Colliery

Gin Pit was a colliery that operated on the Lancashire CoalfieldThe Lancashire and Cheshire Coalfield in North West England was one of the most important British coalfields. Its coal seams were formed from the vegetation of tropical swampy forests in the Carboniferous period more than 300 million years ago. from the 1840s in TyldesleyFormer industrial town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester. Lancashire. The colliery accessed the Middle Coal Measures of the Manchester CoalfieldPart of the Lancashire Coalfield. Some easily accessible seams were worked on a small scale from the Middle Ages, and extensively from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution until the last quarter of the 20th century., and was situated to the south of the Tyldesley Loopline.^[1]

Geology

The colliery accessed the Middle Coal Measures of the Manchester Coalfield which were laid down in the Carboniferous period and where coal is mined from seams between the Worsley Four Foot and Arley mines.^[a]in this part of Lancashire a coal seam is referred to as a mine and the coal mine as a colliery or pit The seams generally dip towards the south and west and are affected by small faults. The Upper Coal Measures are not worked in this part of the coalfield.

History

Gin Pit was on the site of older coal workings and its name suggests it, or a predecessor, had horse-driven winding gearHorse-driven engine used in lead and shallow coal mines..^[2] The colliery, owned by John Darlington, was isolated from roads and he built a narrow gauge horse-drawn tramway to transport coal from the pit to the Bridgewater Canal 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.^[3] The colliery’s single shaft was deepened to the Rams mine at 375 yards (343 m) between 1866 and 1872 by the Astley and Tyldesley Coal and Salt CompanyColliery company formed in 1900, became part of Manchester Collieries in 1929, and some of its collieries were nationalised in 1947. . The pit had a pumping engine built by the Haigh Foundry.^[4]

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.^[5] In 1923 the colliery had 237 underground and 57 surface workers.^[6] In common with many collieries in Lancashire, women, known as pit brow lassesFemale surface labourers at British collieries. They worked at the coal screens on the pit brow (pit bank) at the shaft top until the 1960s. Their job was to pick stones and sort the coal after it was hauled to the surface. were employed on the surface to sort coal on the screens at the pit head.^[2] The colliery was linked to St George’s Colliery for ventilation.

The colliery became part of Manchester Collieries in 1929. In 1947 when the mining industry was nationalised Gin Pit became part of the No 1 Manchester Area of the National Coal Board’s (NCB) North Western Division.^[7] Production ended in 1958.^[8]