Wigan Album
Winstanley
4 Comments
Photo: Derek Winstanley
Item #: 11527
Nicholson's Lane (also known as Hall Lane?) runs from the Red Bridge at the Pingot across to Winstanley Road. The sleepers are in the road before the M6 bridge.
The stone sleepers were the foundation for a cogged fish-bellied rail constructed by Robert Dalglish for his Yorkshire Horse steam train built in 1812 and put into service in Winstanley in 1813. The train was named in honour of the Yorkshireman John Blenkinsop, who designed it. It was built at Haigh Foundry. The railroad carried coal (and passengers) from the Winstanley Collieries across the viaduct in the Pingot and down to the Leeds-Liverpool Canal near Gathurst. The steam loco replaced an earlier wooden wagon way. These pits were sunk to mine the high-quality Orrell Four Feet and Five Feet coal seams that outcropped in Winstanley. A mining lease was granted to John Clarke, a Liverpool businessman in 1792. It was John Clarke who built Orrell Mount c1814. Robert Dalglish was Clarke's manager. The Yorkshire Horse led to a savings of 500 pounds over horse traction the first year. Two more steam trains were at work in Winstanley by 1816.
By about the 1830s, most of the Orrel seams had been exhausted in Winstanley. Baxter's, Windy Arbour and Leyland Green pits were then sunk to greater depths.
In the early 1800s, Blundell came on the scene and sank the Venture pit (behind the Venture pub), and the Bye Pit and later the Queen, King and Prince pits at Pemberton Collieries. It took 3.5 years to sink the Bye pit 390 feet in the 1820s.
Winstanley, the venture capitalists and coal managers played key role in the Industrial Revolution. A pity we couldn't preserve more.
Derek
Sorry to seem naive but what is the Pingot.
Great collection of photos by the way
The Pingot is the name of an area at the bottom of Brook Lane, Pemberton, around the Smithy Brook and the railway. All signs of the old viaduct, lime kiln, houses and shop are long gone. One of the posted photos shows the viaduct, Yorkshire Horse and lime kiln. There is still an iron bridge over the railway and brook - used to call it Red Bridge.
PS. Dalglish should be Daglish.
I'm yet to find remains of these stone sleepers. I think they have now beem covered with a new top surface. The iron bridge was a replacement for a couple of arches of the viaduct when the railway was put on. It was then relocated when the visduct was demolished
If Penix Lane is covered up, there is another place you might look. If you are walking from the Red Bridge along the path towards Winstanley Road it splits - one going to the right up Penix Lane, the other to the left towards the Hall. There is a wall at the corner. Go around the corner of the wall going up to the Hall and behind the wall were some stone sleepers - some propped up and some laying flat.Watch for Squire Bankes or the gamekeeper!