Chatterley Whitfield Colliery is a disused coal mine on the outskirts of Chell, Staffordshire in Stoke on Trent. It was the largest mine working The North Staffordshire Coalfield and in 1937 it was the first colliery in The UK to produce 1,000,000 tons of saleable coal in a year.
End of mining......
After coal production stopped at Chatterley Whitfield on Friday, March 25th, 1977 a brave venture was started by an independent charitable trust to turn the colliery into Britain’s first underground mining museum. Before any visitors could take this underground trip much preparation work had to be done on site. Derelict buildings were renovated, the underground galleries were made safe, for visitors and mining machinery restored in its original working condition in order to show in great realism the life and working conditions of local miners and to preserve an example of the country’s industrial heritage.
So in 1979 the Chatterley Whitfield Mining Museum opened and it soon gained a reputation of being Britain’s best known mining museum attracting over 70,000 visitors a year and contributing to the local tourism.
Underground tours were conducted until the nearby pit at Wolstanton closed.
Incidentally during this period and following the findings of the official inquiry into the Aberfan distaster the conically shaped spoil heap at Chatterley Whitfield was reduced in height by almost a half and took from 1976 until 1982 for the landscaping to be completed.
Why did the underground tours have to stop?
Mining in The Potteries Coalfield began with a large number of small pits. As the easy coal was won, pits had to become deeper to reach new seams, Mining also became mechanised and therefore a much more expensive industry. The number of collieries decreased, but their individual sizes became larger. Chatterley Whitfield was a major colliery in the 1930s ringed by other pits. Each had its own set of pumps to keep the workings dry and these lowered the water level in the whole area, but over the last fifty years (1986) the collieries around Chatterley Whitfield closed one by one. The north of the coalfield is mainly worked out. In 1977 Chatterley Whitfield eventually closed and within three years the Mining Museum was opened.
Visitors descended down the Winstanley shaft a drop of 700 feet and explored a series of workings at this depth. These workings were only a fraction of the total extent of Chatterley Whitfield. The Institute shaft is 1320 feet deep and the Hesketh shaft descends nearly 2,000 feet (610 metres). Workings extended for miles and in the 1930s were in the region of 50 miles.
Towards the end of Chatterley Whitfield’s last days it was connected to the nearby pit of Wolstanton via a 4-mile underground passageway. Wolstanton had shafts descending up to 3,000 feet (914 metres) and as it was the last working pit in the area, it was responsible for pumping. This had a direct effect on Chatterley Whitfield as it was high at 2,000 feet (610 metres) the pumping drained the ‘Higher’.
In 1930 they had 16 underground pumps, and the average amount of water pumped out of the mine in a 24-hour period was 542,000 gallons (2.46 million liters), this water was pumped into a pond on the surface and the water re-pumped to the boilers and washeries.
In 1981 Wolstanton Colliery stopped coal production. After months of salvage work the pumps were turned off in May 1984. This meant that the water present would gradually rise to its natural level and slowly flood the abandoned workings at Wolstanton and then eventually Chatterley Whitfield. The cost of pumping was too high and could not be met by the museum.
The water would take years to rise to the level of the old Chatterley Whitfield tour at 700 feet (213 metres) below ground, but there was another problem, coal gives off methane (Firedamp), a gas formed by the decay of plants which produced the coal millions of years ago. The gas is absorbed and adsorbed within the coal, but mining disturbs the ground and releases the gas. The gas is colourless and highly explosive. If there is sufficient in the air it reduces the amount of oxygen and causes suffocation.
Methane is lighter than air and it builds up under the roof of the mine. In a working pit the ventilation fans prevent this from happening, but when the fans stop the methane build up in the abandoned workings.
As the water slowly rose following the closure of Wolstanton the methane levels were monitored through a pipe in the Hesketh shaft. The signs were not good, as it was forecast the levels rose and with the levels also being affected by weather conditions it was decided that all the shafts must be capped and sealed, keeping the methane trapped below underground.
These two problems, the water levels and gas meant that it was unsafe to allow visitors to use the old underground workings of Chatterley Whitfield. The solution was a purpose built mining experience and this opened on Wednesday, August 20th, 1986.
1986 to 1993
When British Coal seal the shafts of an old colliery they usually fill them right up to the surface. However it was quickly realised that at Chatterley Whitfield, the Museum would need a new underground tour and British Coal did all they could to help.
The first part of the plan was to plug two shafts well below the surface. The thick layer of concrete would prevent gas from rising any higher and it meant that the museum could still use the tops of the shafts – One shaft for visitors to experience the miners cage ride to work and the other shaft to demonstrate coal winding. From the pit bottom area the museum then started on a most unusual project – to build a new mine, using some shallow workings and the railway cutting, which would show the history of mining from 1850 to the present day.
The new Experience survived until the early 1990s, when the museum was closed on Monday, August 9, 1993 and put into the hands of the liquidators.
In 1994 an auction was held and articles sold off !!!
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