Mechanical and Electrical Fitter’s Shop

Mechanical and Electrical Fitter’s Shop

The electrical and mechanical fitting shop at Chatterley Whitfield colliery. The building was constructed circa 1940 with subsequent alteration to a mining car repair shop, and latterly as a museum locomotive repair shop. It is of steel frame construction with with single-skin infill panels. The framework is expressed externally as a rectangular grid pattern. When the site ceased production of coal in 1976-77, the buildings at Chatterley Whitfield were utilised by the Coal Board for non-mining activities until March 1989. A mining museum was opened on part of the site in 1979 and closed on 9 August 1993 when the Museum Trust went into voluntary liquidation. Listed Grade II.
Summary of Building
Former electrical & mechanical fitters' shop (15) of c.1935; altered in the later C20 to a mining car repair shop.
Reasons for Designation
The former fitters' shop of c.1935 at Chatterley Whitfield Colliery is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: Historic interest: although a modest building, it is fundamental to the understanding and historical development of the colliery; Representativeness: for its key role as a colliery service building, and as a component of one of the country's best surviving collieries from the industry's period of peak production; Fittings: it contains a range of machinery which provides evidence for the historic function of the building; Group value: it has a spatial relationship with other listed buildings and a scheduled monument.
Details
Former electrical & mechanical fitters' shop (15) of circa 1935; altered in the later C20 to a mining-car repair shop.

MATERIALS: steel framed with single-skin infill panels of brick; the framework expressed externally as a rectangular grid pattern. The west gable end has been sheeted over with profiled metal cladding. The steel truss roof is clad with asbestos cement sheeting incorporating strip patent glazing roof lights, and there are ridge ventilation cowls.

PLAN: three linked parallel ranges orientated roughly west-east, with the south (rear) range extending only part of the length of the rest of the building. Each range is a single bay wide.

EXTERIOR: the north elevation of seventeen bays has windows with metal frames at two levels in the lower part of the wall, several of which have been bricked up. The upper part of the elevation lacks openings. There is a large entrance with double doors to the right-hand (west) end, and two smaller doorways towards the centre and east end respectively. The pattern of two rows of windows is replicated to the gabled east elevation, with large sliding doors to the central and left-hand bays; the latter serving rail access into the building. The rear (south) elevation also has the same arrangement of window openings with a wide entrance towards the western end. There is a similar opening, with sliding doors, in the west gable end of the south range. Although the west elevation has been clad in corrugated sheeting, the former window openings are visible within the building. There are a number of steel access ladders, walkways, handrails, pipework and a vertical flue stack fixed to the outside of the building.

INTERIOR: the outer ranges have overhead travelling crane gantries and supporting stanchions, and there are narrow and standard gauge rails set in the floor through much of the building. A number of internal structures have been built within the fitters' shop; those in blockwork being the most recent additions. The building still contains some machinery including a diesel generator, a saw bench, a gantry for a chain hoist and other plant equipment.