Old Mine Workings.

[firbeck 859]

Littlebro

That photo was stunning, have you any more.

[littlebro 234]

Hi Firbeck,

I will dig out a few more. Check later this evening.

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

Thanks littlebro, I appreciate that. Next time your in or around Wollaton Hall, see what you can find out about Wollaton and Radford Collieries for me please. They should have records about them in the family records kept at the Hall. Some photos would be nice too! There doesn't seem to be many photos of Wollaton or Radford floating around.

I am at the moment scanning material for a website I have, the late Terry Blythe had one on the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Collieries. Sadly Terry passed away just over a year ago and his Son let the site die. I did copy all of his material before the site went down and requested permission to use any and all of the material Terry had up. That was granted, so I'll have a section on the site for Terry's old site. Just about every pit from the late 1800's to closure will be on it. But some more facts and history plus photos would be appreciated from anyone. I wished I'd took more interested in the 60's when I worked for Lord Robens company!!

John

[Limey 242]

I suspect the Sough drains to the SE into Tottle Brook - note that the earlier maps do not show the brook branching, but the newer maps do - could the source of the branch to the NW be the sough?

This would also seem to indicate that the seams dip to the south? The sough would not be driven "on dip" - as the water flow would be too fast and cause erosion, nor would it be "on-strike" as then there would be no flow - so it would typically be driven cross-dip to create a shallow incline for the water flow.

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

Your probably right Eric.

Yep all coal seams dip from west to east from the Pennines to Europe, and in Notts from north west to the east.

At the farthest extremes of Cliftons workings in the west area, pretty close to Ruddington, the Deep Hard seam is at it's closest to the Bunter Sandstone. Then it deeps pretty steeply to the east end of the pit. In fact a couple of Cotgraves faces finished within a few hundred yards from our last face in deep hard at it's deepest! How deep?? Probably 2500 feet below the surface at a guess.

I found some info this morning, the interconnecting road underground from Wollaton to Radford Collieries was pretty steep, all coal went via rope haulage down the incline to Radfords pit bottom. We are talking pre NCB days by the way. The road was in the same seam and no faults either.

The sough caused some legal problems as other colliery owners took advantage of it to drain their pits!! The Strelley's were one lot that got caught up in litigation. They had to pay after that to use the sough!

[littlebro 234]

Another image from the Bramcote Moor. Taken 1905-ish I think. The lady ismy Great-Great Grandma

Do we have any posties that can comment on the Postman's uniform? Very dapper. It clearly is a staged photo, any idea of the event?

Though it's soooo cold at the moment my postman still wears shorts & trainers!

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

Funny about the shorts in winter. When I live down under, I spent a few years in Bathurst NSW, and the winters there can get pretty bitter! There was a council worker, he wore shorts winter and summer, snow, blizzards rain you name it, never bothered him one bit!

[Beefsteak 305]

She's just been given her pension book (Only 20 years late ,but , thats the royal mail for you)

[firbeck 859]

I notice that nothing has been said on here about Trowell Moor Colliery, wouldn't this have had some connection with the sough you are talking about, it was situated very close to the alleged canalside exit near Coventry Lane.

I've mentioned this pit on here before but can't find out much about it's history or closure date, but the shafts and some of the buildings were still there in the early 60's.

Tottle Brook disappeared underground at the junction of Bilborough and Cockington roads. I believe it travels down the centre of Cockington road and under Firbeck Estate. There used to be dog boarding kennels between the railway and Fernwood Estate that were abandoned in the late 50's early 60's. The stream emerged briefly here in a massive culvert that you could walk into, it was a double tunnel, one above the other, all constructed out of concrete, it then dissapeared again until it emerged and fed the Highfields paddling pool.

I often wondered why such a big construction had been built there, could it have been something to do with a sough.

Another nice pic by the way Littlebro, I hope that they provided that postie with a bike, his nearest post office must have been in Wollaton Village in those days, it must have been a hell of a trek in bad weather.

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

More info, the sough did drain into Tottle Brook, now in the book Bread and Herrings Pit, the author thinks it was a surface feature, but being as it cost over 1000 pound to dig, I'd go with Dr Alan Griffin's tunnel. Dr Griffin used to be the Coal Board Historian and taught mining history at Nottingham University, so his theory seems more plausible.

There is mention of more "collieries", but these would have been large bell pits in the 15th and 16th centuries at the edge of the Willoughby's property, the Strelley's being one mining family involved.

I'll post some quotes from both books later.

[ube 38]

The map shows the western edge of Wollaton Collieries workings in the deep soft seam. Just to the east on the rest of the map is Wollaton Park.

There are some old workings marked 1789 under Bramcote Moor with a sough, that's a drainage tunnel that the Willoughby family had driven to drain the workings.

My question is, has anyone seen where the sough comes out?? At a guess, I'd say it drains into what once was the Nottingham Canal, so would still be accessible.

The Sough tail appears between Finsbury road and Grangewood road......if you Google earth it you can clearly see it in a fenced off area

[Frank 13]

Just listening to the news this morning and it seems they want to knock down the old pit heads at Annesley.

[Beefsteak 305]

Just found a little bit of silly local history for you. The Strelly family were one of the first to use "Semper Fidelis" (Or 'Semper fi' (Always faithful) in the US marines) as their family moto . Just thought you might like to know!!

[Ashley 288]

Re tottle brook, there used to be a stream surface just off glaisdale drive on open land about where that pub (if still there) is opp burnside rd, is that part of it? wasn't there a radio rentals depot or something there also (late 1960's), used to go riding old strippped down scooter over the fields there, remember one day belting along (20mph) and found someone had dug hole in the path! you've heard other say similar but I distinctly recall looking down seeing bike bouncing as I flew over such then quiet, till I hit the ground! no injury apart from shook up etc

[littlebro 234]

Thats the other source of clay for Fynger!

[Bilbraborn 1,594]

I've back-tracked to this thread because of something that has happened across the road (Wigman Road Bilborough) from me. They have rebuilt Glenbrook Primary School and are now in the process of demolishing the old schools. My daughter-in-Law who is a teaching assistant there has alerted me to this. They have discovered a brick lined tunnel under the school near where the junior girls and junior boys (as pre 1980s) met. At first I thought that it might have been part of the sough but I think it was more likely to have been a culvert carrying a stream under the Bilborough Cut. I remember remnants of this cut in the thick woods behind what was then Glaisdale School. The school is now Bluecoat-Beechdale Academy and the woods and canal remnants now levelled. As the cut followed the 200 feet contour, part of it was probably taken out to build the school hence the need for a culvert to take the stream shown on old maps. The stream is probably still there because the school was often flooded in the 1950s when I was a pupil there.

    As for the Sough.  Over the years I have gone through every book in the local studies library detailing even the smallest mention of mining in the exposed area around Bilborough -Wollaton - Strelley. There is a bit which mentions that the Sough emerged at Kings Bridge but unfortunately I did not record the source of this info. Among my collection of local maps is a copy of a map detailing the old names for the areas of Nottingham (such as Sandfields). Kings bridge is shown as somewhere between the old Wilford Road and the modern approach road to Clifton Bridge. So could it have drained into the River Leen? I have a real bee in my bonnet about this Sough and hopefully now I have partly retired I'll have more time to find out.

      Did someone mention the archives at the Angel Row library? I have heard that there are numerous boxes of info in the cellar and no staff to catalogue all this. Not that the local authority has any interest in history.