Info relating to Ayupmeducks Proposed Book on Local Coalmines

[firbeck 860]

While I was looking on here to see if there was any info on the Black Boy, I came across Ayupmeducks old topic about the book he was planning about the local coal mines. I noticed that nothing had been put up since February and wondered how it was going.

The thing is, in mothers loft, I came across some original NCB survey plans showing the surface buildings at both Wollaton and Radford Collieries. These plans are MASSIVE and show every detail including the slagheaps, buildings, railway lines, everything. The trouble is, they are very fragile and have a tendency to crumble, I can't open them out to see how much of an area they cover, but the rolls must be several metres long!!

Quite frankly, I haven't dared to open them all out and study them in detail, I don't want to damage them more than they already are. Has anyone got any ideas on paper conservation, would it be an idea to spray them with a fine spray of water. These are paper copies of tracing paper or linen prints, I wonder what happened to the originals.

Why we have got them is beyond me, I can only think that for some reason they were in the filing system at my old architects firm, Royle and Whitehorn at Castle Place, and during a big sort out of files and drawings that I undertook one weekend, that they were something that I rescued for myself.

So how do I conserve and copy them, that is the question, I think I'll wander up the road and see my pal at the Braintree Museum, he'll help me out.

Incidentally, I don't know what our old offices at Castle Place are used for now, but the cellars are 3 stories deep and the bottom one was full of original files and drawings dating back to the beginning of the 20th Century, I wonder if the stuff is still there.

[Limey 242]

Are the plans "blueprints" - i.e. blue with white lines, or white with blue lines? If so, the originals were probably on vellum, and drawn in ink. The copies (which you have) used ammonia to develop the image - and yes, they become very brittle after a few years in storage.

This was a very common way of copying large drawings right up until CAD came along and with a big plotter it was easier and cheaper to make another drawing rather than copy the original.

The NCB had all their mine plans, and local O.S. surveys, on vellum. Whenever a copy was made of the O.S. survey, an entry was made in a log so that the appropriate roayalties were paid!

[mick2me 3,033]

Photograph them.

Do you require further information on the best way to do it?

If you were closer, I could do it for you.

[firbeck 860]

It's ok Limey and Mick, thanks for your comments, but I used to do the prints when I was a trainee architect, they ain't blueprints, I suspect that they are probably ammonia prints that I know have a tendency to fade, well they've been in the dark for years so they are relatively sharp and I'll keep them that way, but if you have advice on how to deal with these gems, I'm quite keen to hear it.

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

Not a book Firbeck, website and it's up and running with material I add as I find time. I'm re roofing the house at present and catching up on work that I'm so behind on, so the site comes second to everything. The last couple of days, in between working, I've been backing my files up, something I should do as I add and collect stuff on the computer. No I'm no author, wouldn't know where to start, although when the sites done, if ever, as new stuff surfaces daily, I will run a hard copy off of all the material. As for the surface plans of Radford and Wollaton, contact the Coal Authority in Mansfield, they will give you tips as they are also scanning all old mine abandonment plans, many in a frail state too. They are in the phone book and have a site on the internet. My latest acquisition is a couple of chapters dating from the late 1800's to the early 1900's of the geology between Nottm and Newark. A very interesting cross section of the carboniferous measures between Clifton Colliery and Ruddington sectional map. Shows the Bunter sandstone, top hard, deep soft,Deep hard and Tupton seams and how they rise to within a couple of hundred feet of the surface at Ruddington. Of course, all those seams do outcrop on the Notts/Derbyshire border or just beyond.

[firbeck 860]

Can you give me the details of the website, I'd like to see it, and would you like me send you some sort of scans/photos of these plans.

So is the 'Coal Authority' in Mansfield only interested in recording their heritage and nothing to do with the Notts industry of which Thorseby and Welbeck are the only pits left working, for the moment, Welbeck due to close at the end of the year.

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

The coal authority should be able to help you with information they have learned from dealing with very old paper maps in poor condition, they may also be interested in scanning your plans Firbeck. They purchased two large state of the art scanners to scan all mine plans in their custody. Their aim is to make them available on line. I have copies from them of Cliftons deep hard, tupton and piper seams, and Cotgraves Deep soft, deep hard and piper seams. As time permits, I'll scan them in sections and add them to the site. the site's URL is http://coalcollieryandmining.110mb.com/ I'd be very happy to have a scan of the maps, might well put them up on the Wollaton Colliery and Radford Colliery pages, I'm after as much information, photos, plans and stories as I can. Not just on Nottingham collieries, but any and all collieries the UK had. It's an ongoing project to publish as much UK coal history as possible. We have already lost one full generation of mineworkers, the ones who taught me. Now our generation is getting old, so at least we can leave some documented history behind.

My site allows 5 gigs of space, I have now used just over 200mbs of space, so still have loads of room yet, and with a little pruning and after thought! I can reduce the 200mbs down to about 150mbs or less without removing any material. After the site is almost done, I plan to set all the material out in "hard form" on paper. Might just make a good coal history book! Shane Phillips sent me over three hundred high quality scanned photos, underground and surface of Notts pits, with his permission to use all of them.

Here's the Coal Authority website, their telephone number is on there and their street address. Coal Authority

[firbeck 860]

The demise of the coal industry and everything that went with it in this country breaks my heart, they'll learn to regret it's demise sooner than they think, I can't believe that they are preparing to close down Welbeck given the cost of importing coal from Russia, Poland and South Africa, we should be self sufficient, not open to international financial blackmail.

I have a host of family ancestors, late uncles and friends who worked down the mines, yes it was a hard, thankless job, in fact one of my uncles died from pnuemocosis.

The coal industry made Britain great, but also made many individuals rich on the back of those poor sods that suffered working their guts out as a consequence. I never worked down the mines like you Ayupmeducks, but I did manage to experience what it was like, crouched under the Dowty props on the coal face at Cotgrave while the cutters were at work, horrific. It always made me think that in later years, that evil bitch Thatcher should have gone down to a coalface herself before making judgements and preferring the countries economy to be based on the results of the rich, faceless city stockbrokers rather than the true, honest working class folk who risked their lives to work on the coalface.

One thing I have promised in my life, wherever Thatcher is eventually buried, and I hope it's soon, I intend to p1$$ on her grave as a tribute to the Nottinghamshire miners and all the other industrial workers that she manipulated and conned, no doubt along with a lot of other folk, Hitler would have got on well with Madam, they were two of a kind, except that the Nazi party appreciated the efforts of their workers.

[lynmee 38]

Firbeck

Which governments have closed more collieries Labour or Conservatives?All Thatcher did was take on Arthur Scargill and beat him

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

The National Coal Board was run on flawed guidelines for years, in fact from it's inception. The old mine owners walked away laughing all the way to the banks, as the government had "overpriced" run down collieries from the beginning. Instead of nationalising them, pay the true market price and cut the owners loose, it was agreed to pay the old owners royalties for so long. That was a mill stone around the NCB's neck from day one. IF, they had had a clean slate, things might have been different.

One thing most don't understand in Scargill's reasoning was the very reason the coal industry was Nationalised in the first place. It's charter wasn't profit, let's get that straight from the beginning, it's aim was to firstly provide fuel for the British people at a cheap price. Safe reliable employment for the coal industries employees, and enough left over from sales to provide for exploration of new coal resources. The intent of Nationalisation was not to have a new corporation run on the lines of corporate enterprise. Sadly, all governments failed the people of Britain and the mineworkers.

It's pretty interesting reading about pre coal industry nationalisation, the lead up to Labour taking over after WW2 and then the start of the rot in the mining industry. Labour governments were the worst at closing collieries down, Harold Wilson during his office in the 60's and 70's closed more pits than Thatcher and other Prime Ministers combined!

Then there's the trickle down effect that no government really thinks about, for every mineworker, ten are employed in outside industries, most in export industries that made the country billions every year. The UK coal industry provided a cheap testing ground for machinery. Companies like Anderson Strathclyde, Dowty, Gullick, Dobson, Huwood, Wallacetown Engineering, Baldwin Francis just to name a few developed machinery and electrical equipment for export with years of testing in UK collieries. Some of the above companies are now in foriegn hands, the profits of which are now taxed in Germany and the USA. Billions lost in jobs, profits and taxes all because politicians have lost sight of what it's all about.

When I was in Australia, my employer put out for tender for a package for a longwall face to replace our old equipment. Dowty UK won the tender for the powered roof supports over it's own subsidiary, Dowty Wolleng of NSW. Yep, UK Dowty could make the 140 roof supports and deliver them from the UK to the pit yard for $135,000 Australian each. Reason??? British steel was cheaper than Australian steel. That provided jobs for UK tradesmen and steelworkers. The Shearer was supplied by Anderson Strathclyde, most of which came from Scotland and the rest in NSW works. BUT, it could have been a German shearer, or a Joy made in the USA or even a Japanese machine! All UK governments have a lot to answer for in the jobs they have lost for their constituents.

[firbeck 860]

Talking of Dowty has made me wonder where those plans may have come from. A colleague of mine left our architects office and went to work in the drawing office at Dowty's, would that have been Hucknall way?

He didn't stay for long, he found the draughting rather tedious and came back to work with us again when things got busy. I wouldn't be surprised if he obtained those plans from Dowty's for me, knowing my interest in the area. I'm still in contact with him, he lives near Newark, I'll give him a ring and ask him if he has any other relics of the mining industry stashed away that might be of interest to you.

I have to get a copy of some plans from our local print shop today, I'll have a word with my mate up there as to how to deal with these old plans.

Sorry, but you will never get me to lose my loathing of Thatcher, and Scargill was an equally self opinionated prima donna. After she kicked him in to touch, it was all out revenge against the mining industry, including her pals in the breakaway Nottingham Union, she soon went back on her promises to them. Wilson may have closed down more pits during his reign, but lets face it, so many of them at that time were out of date and worked out anyway.

Last year, starting with the sad remains of Stanton Ironworks, I took a drive up the Erewash Valley and surrounds with my son and his university pals, I was pointing out where all the pits, railways, canals and all the asociated paraphanalia of our industrial past had been wiped of the face of the earth, they were astonished, but thats progress isn't it, Tesco, Ikea and B&Q are the way forward I guess.

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

Looking through a book on the roof supports we had at Angus Place, Dowty had a service centre on Watnall Road in Hucknall and their main works were in Ashchurch, Gloucestershire. I think they started off in Derby, not 100% on that though. They started in Aviation hydraulic systems, invented and made the Dowty hydraulic prop, then in 1960 introduced their version of the powered hydraulic face support, the Roofmaster. Used to scare the living day lights out of me as they were so top heavy, I feared one would topple over when they were being advanced. They also used hydraulic oil in the earlier versions, later, around mid 60's changed to soluble oil.

The Erewash is where most seams surface and outcrop, then dip north eastwards towards mainland Europe. All the seams we worked in Notts were well over 3000ft deep under Lincoln.

As I stated, if you can't get local help on how to deal with fragile maps, contact the Coal Authority, I'm sure they will go out their way to help, probably also scan them and print a fresh copy off for you too!! Some of their maps are well over 150 years old.