Appendix 1: Theme 10.1 – the East Kent Coalfields Dover District Heritage Strategy
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Appendix 1: Theme 10.1 – The East Kent Coalfields Dover District Heritage Strategy 1 Cover Snowdown Colliery buildings Figure 1 Collieries and coal field settlements in Dover District Theme 10.1 – 3 The East Kent Coalfields 2 Summary 10.1 The development of the East Kent Coalfield from the late nineteenth century led to a short-lived, but intensive industry that transformed the otherwise rural landscape of parts of the District. It is an industry that has left its mark on the District, workable coal seam in the county and gave not only as a result of the surviving buildings, hope that a major new industry would but also from the new areas of settlement develop in the region. The first coal mine in and in particular the communities that it Kent was started on the site in 1896. generated. These new communities have 10.3 By 1920 over forty coal companies had retained a distinctive character that has been registered, many of which were affiliated outlived the collieries themselves. to the Kent Coal Concessions Ltd led by their energetic managing director Arthur Introduction Burr. Thirty boreholes were sunk between 10.2 This paper is concerned with an 1904 and 1914 in an effort to find workable industry that has left its mark on an coal seams. The depth of the coal seams and otherwise rural landscape that covers the flooding made mining difficult and a number majority of Dover District, that is the East of mines (Shakespeare, Guilford, Maydensole, Kent Coalfield Since the middle of the Stonehall, Wingham and Woodnesborough) nineteenth century, there was strong were abandoned in the early years of the speculation that the coal seams being worked field. Transport problems on mainly profitably in Northern France would extend unmetalled roads led to the construction of across the Channel in to East Kent. In 1890 a the East Kent Light Railway between (mainly) borehole sunk during a suspension of works 1911 and 1916. on the channel tunnel site at Shakespeare 10.4 There were no experienced miners in Cliff near Dover confirmed the presence of a Figure 2 Shakespeare Colliery, Dover. © Dover Museum (d09802) Figure 3 Arthur Burr esq. © Dover Museum (d007301) Dover District Heritage Strategy 4 Kent when coal was first discovered in the while the fourth was at Chislet (1913) near 1890s. Workers had to be imported from Canterbury. The pace of the coal production traditional mining areas such as Wales, increased and unemployed miners from Scotland, Northern England and the Midlands. Wales and the north of England flocked to At a time when the industry was booming, Kent to find work. Coal output increased Kent had to pay high wages to attract from 368,000 tons in 1925 to over 2 million workers to work in pits which had relatively tons ten years later. The impetus was mainly poor working conditions and old fashioned due to the investment of the Middlesbrough practices compared to the pits in the steel company Dorman and Long, which established fields. developed Betteshanger Colliery and redeveloped Snowdown after its purchase in 10.5 One of the biggest problems facing the 1924. There was also an ambition for a major early mines was where to house the influx of iron and steel industry at this time and new workers. Those at Shakespeare Colliery anticipation of a major industrial region. all lived in Dover and others were expected to also live there by the town council. Arthur 10.7 In 1925 the East Kent local authorities Burr preferred his workers to live closer to commissioned a report which envisaged that the pits and he leased Elvington court near 18 mines would eventually be opened and Tilmanstone and fitted it out with that the population of East Kent would dormitories. He then began to build small almost double. To avoid urban sprawl, the estates at Elvington, Woolage, Stonehall and report proposed the construction of eight Snowdown. new towns and limited expansion of the existing towns. In the event the Kent coalfield 10.6 By the 1920s four mines had emerged failed to match the high expectations and the as viable collieries. Three of these were in population growth did not occur to the Dover District at Tilmanstone (started 1906) extent expected. Snowdown (1907) and Betteshanger (1924) Figure 4 Guilford Colliery, Dover. View of pit head buildings and rail wagons. © Dover Museum (d55403) 5 6 was built in 1930. 10.10 The economic conditions of the late 1930s caused a decline in the Kent coalfields. The coalfields had a reputation as difficult and unprofitable workings, the coal being some of the most expensive in Britain and the whole industry was always close to failing. In 1947 the entire coal industry was nationalised and the National Coal Board had it in mind to close the Kent mines from as 10.8 Nonetheless many miners did escape early as 1960. Chislet which provided coal for unemployment and poverty in their home steam locomotives lost out to electrification areas to work in Kent, and in particular many of the railways and closed in 1969. By 1975 blacklisted miners travelled to Kent after the the three remaining Kent pits employed just General Strike of 1926. This influx initially 3000 miners and produced a million tons of horrified the local population. Towns like coal per annum, virtually all of which was Deal, where large numbers of the used by the steel industry. The 1980s saw the Betteshanger miners lived, experienced large government closing uneconomic pits and the groups of blackened labourers marching to resulting national miners strike in 1984. and from the colliery through their streets. Snowdown and Tilmanstone closed in 1987 Tensions increased and signs stating ‘No and Betteshanger closed in 1989, only 99 Miners’ appeared in the shops and pubs in years after the first discovery of coal in Kent. the town. To try and reduce this hostility Kent mines were amongst the first to establish pit head baths to allow the miners Description of the Heritage to go home clean. Pit villages were developed Assets at Elvington, Aylesham, Hersden and Mill Hill 10.11 The heritage assets of the East Kent to house the miners from the four collieries. Coalfield are a diminishing resource of the 10.9 The East Kent Light Railway also did former colliery workings and the early not achieve its planned success and planned attempts to establish the coalfield, its lines such as that from Wingham to supporting infrastructure, the settlements Canterbury were never built. By the 1950s that housed the miners and the coalfield only a short section serving Tilmanstone communities and memories that survive Colliery survived. An aerial ropeway linking today. These are described briefly in turn Tilmanstone colliery with Dover Harbour below. Figure 5 Aerial ropeway emerging through cliff at Dover harbour, 1930. © Dover Museum (d25562) Figure 6 Betteshanger Colliery Regeneration - sites for sale Dover District Heritage Strategy 7 Colliery Workings was sold for scrap in 1918. Nothing remains of the colliery today. 10.12 Shakespeare (aka Dover) Colliery was the first coal mine in Kent started in 10.13 In the first twenty five years 1896 following the discovery of coal on the following the discovery of coal in the boring site six years earlier. The mine suffered from at Shakespeare Cliff, more than 45 boreholes serious flooding in its first years and it was were sunk across East Kent, many funded not until 1903 that the problem was through entrepreneur Arthur Burr, who overcome. The first commercial coal was created a number of syndicates to invest in extracted in 1907 but it proved to be colliery developments. It is possible that uneconomical to mine and was of poor evidence of the borings survives however quality. The colliery finally closed in 1915 and none have been identified within the present study. Eventually nine collieries developed 8 although the difficulties in extracting coal in East Kent meant that it was not until 1912 that the first coal was productively mined. Of the nine collieries, five failed in the early years without producing coal. These were the four Burr collieries at Guilford, Wingham, Woodnesborough and Maydensole and the fifth at Stonehall which are described below: 10.14 Guilford (aka Waldeshare) Colliery was started in 1906 by Arthur Burr’s Foncage Syndicate. Three shafts were sunk but flooding stopped work in 1910. A French company bought the site and tried but failed Figure 7 Guilford Colliery, No 3 Shaft, first hoppit of coal. © Dover Museum (d09801) Figure 8 Shakespeare (aka Dover) Colliery (outlined in red) as seen on the 4th Edition (1929 to 1952) Ordnance Survey map 9 of the site indicates that an important collection of four of the original colliery buildings survive on the site and incorporated into the early brickworks. 10.17 Another Burr syndicate started Maydensole Colliery in 1910. Buildings were erected and boreholes drilled but no shafts to use the cementation process to seal the were sunk. Two of the buildings survive on shafts and the colliery was abandoned in the site, presently sitting isolated in a field. 1921. Two buildings remain from the original They were later used to help drive the workings including the winding house that Tilmanstone to Dover Aerial Ropeway that has been spectacularly converted to a passed through the colliery and are marked prestigious residential property. on the present Ordnance Survey as ‘Old Engine Shed’. 10.15 Burr’s Wingham Colliery commenced in 1910 and two shafts were 12 sunk and buildings erected. These hit water and the colliery was mothballed until it was sold to a grain miller in 1924.