Battle of Howe Bridge

Riot that took place on 28 January 1881 against the background of an acrimonious strike by 50,000 miners from pits on the Lancashire coalfield, characterised by mobs of miners picketing working pits.

Pendleton fault

Geological fault stretching for about 20 miles (32 km) from Bolton in Greater Manchester in the north along the Irwell Valley through Pendleton and south to Poynton in Cheshire.

Haydock Collieries

Haydock Collieries comprised several pits, some started in the 18th century, on land owned by the Leghs of Lyme around Haydock on the Lancashire Coalfield in north-west England.

Burning wells

Phenomenon known in the area around Wigan in Lancashire from at least the 17th century.

Cleworth Hall Colliery

Cleworth Hall Colliery on the Lancashire Coalfield operated between 1880 and 1963 in Tyldesley, Lancashire, England.

Damps

Damps is a collective name given to all gases other than air found in coal mines in Great Britain. The chief pollutants are carbon dioxide and methane, known as blackdamp and firedamp respectively.

Bedford Colliery explosion

Explosion of firedamp on Friday 13 August 1886 which caused the deaths of 38 miners at Bedford No. 2 Pit in Leigh, on the Lancashire Coalfield.

Coal mining terms

This is a partial glossary of common coal mining terms used in the United Kingdom. Some words were in use throughout the coalfields, some are historic and others are local to the different British coalfields.

Fairbottom Bobs

Fairbottom Bobs, an 18th-century Newcomen-type beam engine, was used to pump water from a coal pit near Ashton-under-Lyne, is probably the world’s second-oldest surviving steam engine.