This Is the Fifteenth Year of the Lancaster Two (Nos. 9 and 10) In
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Editorial Notes on Coal and Coalmining in western Lunesdale and Quernmore. This fifteenth year Lancaster is the of the by John Clare & Phillip J. Hudson. Archaeological Society and only the thirteenth volume slippage of Contrebis. This can be explained by the This paper is resumd which occurred when no volume was issued 19Bl, a of a lecture given to the in society in November 1986, and part two (nos. 9 and 10) in 1982, and double volurnes is of an interim report on the progress of a field study in which in 1983-4 and 1985-6. It is intended to regularise we are examining and recording the production, with with an all aspects of in* starting this issue, dustrial activity in the Lune Valley. annual volume issued in May/June. The policy remai-ns as it always has been, to publish some papers read The Quernrnore va1ley and its environs has in our before the Society, to print articles by members, opinion been used for many many years as an and notes on recent. finds. industrial site; this is in spite of the fact that the whole area was Roya1. Forest during the medieval While activity on the excavation side has not been and later periods. The whole valley end very great there are prospects of both preliminary from one to the other appears to have been a resource si_te and rescue excavations in Lancaster, if current for Lancaster and adjoining areas, worked for per- proposals for developments go ahead. city-centre haps 2000 years. In the other areas covered by hoped place when It is that excavations will take this paper as in Quernmore, men have been extracting derelict property on Damside Street is demolished. by mining or quarrying coal, c1ay, iron, shale, This may give some insight into what was probably flags, millstones, slates, building and walling t.he Roman waterfront. Here if anywhere, waterlogged stone, and working and exploiting many other deposits may be encountered. resources, the woodlands for timber and charcoal Any understanding of Roman Lancaster is hampered making, streams and becks for water power, and by the continuing failure to publish the reports the remaining lands for different types of agricul- on excavation put together as long ago as 1975. ture'and forestry. hthile rumours of publication continue to reach us Our main topic is coalmining; other aspects of there is a natural creditility gap built up over industrial activity in will discussed the intervening twelve years. the area be in later reports. First a short resumd of the It is with great sadness that we record the immo- history of coalmining and use in northern England lation of the Department of Classics and Archaeology in order to set the scene. The Romans used coal, at the University of Lancaster on the altar .of but they probably only surface-mined it, or used teconomyt rrationalisationr. and What will survive shallow bell pits. It is known that the Romans of its work remains to be seen. One consolation were mining lead and other minerals in the Yorkshire is , the continuance of the Cumbria and Lancashire Dales and elsewhere, and coal finds are recorded Archaeological UniE, though obviously the pressures on Hadriants Wall and on Roman sites at Wilderspool to find outside and commercial sponsorship increase and Manchester(1). By 1180 there are references all Lhe time. We are delighted to carry interlm which cannot be tied in fu1ly with charcoal use. reports on the Unitfs work. These appear in the documents as use of ttcole or seacolestt, for example, Et Counden, Sedgefield and Bishopswearmouth, (2) and the monastic houses in Yorkshire had coal mining rights near Leeds Andrew White, and elsewhere in i170.(3) Hon. Editor. .) -1- Studies of some of the mini-ng techniques medieval Agricola's 16th century illustrations, (4) df,o* a miners used shows use of the bell pit method.. This range of well-made and specialised equi]pment. method involves sinking a shaft to the coal seam, (Fig 1) This treatise on mining uses many lillus- maxj-mum depth being about 50ft, and working the trations taken from mines i"n the north of Erfgland. seam of coal as far as possible round the base of Mining methods and technology in England ln the the shaft before it caves in. The working cannot 16th century were quite sophisticated and incor- go very far sideways before the miners run out of porated many of the methods developed and used by oxygen, so this type of working is not usually more the Romans. Agricola, c.1550, shows the sinking than 60 feet across the base. Take the surface of mine shafts, the first stages of the excavati-on off an old working area and you will see a series of the mine, and he shows a windlass up at the top of holes (these types of workings have been revealed to do the hoisting. hle want to draw your attention quite recently when the National Coal Board were to this for a later point. He shows the sinking opencasting on some of the old workings). One of of shafts with adits or leve1s running in, all the the disadvantages of using the bel1 pit method occurs Eypes of methods in use, including techniques used when the miners run into a thicker seam of coal; for raising water, and draining mines, and a most it cannot be worked quite as far sideways as a thin ingenious one of a series of buckets driven by a one before it caves in. To overcome this problem water wheel where the buckets are just chained to- what they used to do was to sink a shaft into a gether by their handles.(Fig 2) That method was series of chambers, and then work the sides leaving certainly in use about 1380 in Newcastle. Another in pillars of rock or coal for roof supports. Both method where there is a series of sucti-on lift pumps hexagonal and pentagonal chambers have been recorded powered by an undershot water wheel is also quite in the Wigan area. What age these are is not known ingenious. but they must be perhaps early, medieval. The normal Agricola illustrates ventilating the mines using type of bell pit has been use from Roman in times, water power, and use of a water wheel underground, and in some areas bell pits have been used in iron with the vent shaft sticking out above the surface. mining from the 12th century, so it is a very o1d So by 1560 miners were being quite clever in their technique. The bell pit is one coal mining method efforLs to mine coal. These mining techniques in general use within Ltnesdale the area. discussed above could well have been in use in Ehe hlithin the general area of Lunesdale we possibly Lunesdale area from medieval times. Most of the have all these methods of mining in use. Another siLes we are researching are within the area that method, which was in use in Quernmore coal working, Moseley(5) called the Lancaster Fe1ls. (Fig 3) was to drive down two shafts near to each other, First the geology of tire area; limestone up in the one much larger and used to bring up all the coal, northern area, the Bunter shales and Keuper rnarles the other, the smaller with a fire on top of it down in the south, and more limestone in the which could be tended by the winchman operating Slaidburn area. In the centre are the grits of the winch on the larger shaft. By having a fire the upper Carboniferous series, which is the main on the top of the small shaft it is possible to area of our study. In the Ingleton area there are draw air through the mine below, and if a series the lower Coal Measures, in which there are a of barriers or baffles are introduced in the under* different group of coals. Across the area of study ground works the miners can move air around where the strata dip from the central point at Clougha, they need it in the complex. back northwards towards Ingleton. This point is important when we begin to look at the number of Early mine working and methods were not primitive coals and coal seams in the area. as a selection of tools used in mining, taken from Starting off on the lower Coal Measures at Ingleton -3- -4- ( ! Fig.2. mine drainage. Fig.l. Agricola; firsL stages in the excavation of a mi-ne. Agricolal LOV/€R COAL M€ASIJRES Roqh nocf G.ctrndrrlrr. YEAOOT{tA,l Gorriocrroe rn c.t :-3 G.csrcrtrua - _ M^RSDENtAN 9sE R2 :g<o FO:E 0r &o<:|lw- Anttu,sntt OCUJE (, | ,Qrt/eubcrrar ra aroctr.Wr figkllt ceel. - /folDocri.sr 4;l - -qint sraoeHnN. H Crotddr Grit JYArrrJi''tigx,,t _ Od Bdrl Grit CJBLrttl Cotor Sldcr Nlldti Rebqrrdoh Ciit liitG ANNSBERCIAI{ nth cod EI 8.2 b-ig.3. Moseley, 1953; the position of the Lancaster Fe1ls. BENT}IA}JI sEl AXo Le9 Crog Grir MEWITH u*L coArt( itD mt tatt{!mto JFjli&rfrt.A tAXo tro{c __ d tH3 t:Fit{c v[ut Bnmand Grirr ELDBOTH fornr rp tlar ttrt G , ,BAt arc lQotd. ltrt J co 9. g E z c( o s u, E F o c o Prndh E u PEIIDLEIAII e, o J gt u E loP IIJ o o roTt cct o' z cirf Qit ,I r/ lr, ,t7t?woctat @ .e (cN) xut atm l1*(' utv(i Htl.tt c&f o cFttul.t ut? Fig.4.