Wigan Album

The engine house,along with the baths,canteen and workshops were still standing in the early 1990s. Soon after that the site was cleared and private houses built.

The shaft for the South pit is in someone's back garden!

Alongside the main running lines a siding ran down to a buffer stop at the bridge on Lurdin Lane.
Just visible is the signal box that controlled the junction for the lines that ran into the pit yard.

I've seen the pic before, but never as clear as this.
Thanks Ron.

My Uncle Charles ( Chal ) worked there for the most of his life . He thought it was a good mine.

The single railway line that crossed School Lane at the traffic lights in Standish and carried along at the back of the houses on High Street and then Wigan Road, is that the pit the train was going to?

I worked at the Vic from 1951 and my first coalface job was as a driller.I was eighteen and at this time my co-driller was Bernard Penman.As drillers we worked split shifts beginning 10am until 5pm.The coalface was the mountain seam and was probably the lowest face in the country and could only be supported by wooden props,not even using cap lids andsteel bars.The fireman said the coal machine was 13inches high.Because of our shift pattern there was a time when Bernard and I would be on our own for a period of one or one and a half hours.This particular day the roof seemed to be very disturbed,lots of cracking and banging and the timber under stress, real scary.However our shift finished and we went home. As is usual I went out at night,courting, and on my way home met one of the afternoon shift who told me that the coalface,as they say,had had a weight and flattened the face to 6inches high.The colliery never recovered and closed down.

Linda , The line you are talking about was from robin hill drift mine to gidlow where the coal was washed before transported further. This photo is of the main London to Glasgow line just between boars head and standish.

In 1964 when I left school I started work at Marlowes Joiners .They used the old pit canteen as the machine shop. Next door the old pit baths was used by someone selling used tyres

My grandad George Johnson.worked there and I think my dad harry Johnson