Wigan Album

graham, if there was just two pit shafts how come we have a no 3 pit bottom ?

Hi,as you say there where 2 shafts No1 downcast and No2 upcast,No3 pit bottom relates to the horizons developed from those shafts.No1 horizon at 449 yards,No2 at 566 yards,No3 at 719 yards and No4 at 836 yards.Each level had a North and South intake and return horizon with the exception of No4 which was never developed.

am i correct in assuming that an horizion is in fact a seam of coal,sorry for being so nieve but you have really got me hooked on Parkside & i need to know as mush as possible regarding the colliery

In Kent, where I worked underground briefly, they were called levels... so I needed educating, too. ;-)

To try and explain in lamens terms,the shafts where sunk vertically and the horizons horizontally,hence the name.The horizons where developed level and the seams of coal disected the various horizons at a gradient of 1 in 5 to the South East,so tapping the reserves would mean breaking in to the seams at varying distances along the horizons.The dip of the mine was such that faces like L4,L5 and S4 where mined off No2 North side of the pit while faces like L11,L15 and S10 where mined off No3 South side of the pit,this is because the coal lies at a different depth throughout the coalfield.