Old Shafts.

[John]

I often wonder how many people would actually buy a house if they knew it had been built on top of a deep shaft, or pretty close to a shaft..

I know I wouldn't, and yet when you check out old collieries, it's amazing how many have houses or blocks of flats built over them.
Linby in Notts has a block of flats right over one of the shafts, my old pit has a pork pie bakery built over both shafts, Wollaton has modern housing built over the shafts, Newcastle Colliery in Nottingham has a kids playing park over the shafts.
When I was looking at Eastwood, loads of modern houses over all the old shafts.

Scary!! And some of those collieries were closed many years before nationalization too, accidents waiting to happen.

[Ragger]

Jun 21, 2012 12:20:09 GMT -5 John said:

I often wonder how many people would actually buy a house if they knew it had been built on top of a deep shaft, or pretty close to a shaft..

Hi. John,

Funny you should mention buying a house near a shaft. I walked down a road yesterday, Dunsil Road, all the roads on the estate are named after coal seams, and one of the houses was named Upcast shaft.

[dazbt]

Not quite built on a shaft, but, twenty five years ago I put a £150 deposit on a house plot (Ladcock Close Monk Bretton Barnsley for anyone that knows the area). I watched work commence on the footings for this house and spoke to the builder who told me that they had been instructed to change the original plans and build the house on a float, being a bit alarmed at this I spoke to the estate agents who assured me that there wasn't a problem but the raft was a precaution after plans had been discovered for local coal workings some 100 years previous 'within the vicinity'. About five weeks later I was driving on the main road past this housing project and noticed a crack in the road as well as small 'fall of side' that had strewn stones onto a pavement from a sandstone cutting in line with this crack, a view along this crack seemed to run directly in line with my partly built new home ....... long story short a phone call to the estate agent resulting in their assurance that this wasn't mining subsidence didn't convince me, I made a few enquiries locally and eventually discovered that this house was directly over the still working Barrow/Barnsley Main 33s Longwall in the Silkstone seam (even more devastating was the fact that this was an AM420 installation that I worked on regulary). The estate agents denied all knowledge and initially refused to return my deposit when I told then I was withdrawing from any contract to buy a house being built directly over a working longwall, the threat of legal action quickly saw a reinbursment. Last year I took a trip down to look at the house built on that plot and found it to be in perfect shape, a bit of a dissapointment really.

[John]

Must have laid a damned good slab Daz, as a standard slab would still have cracked with uneven forces taking place under it.

But with the amount of old shafts collapsing due to the infill slumping, it's a scary proposition having a house over a shaft.
I have visions of a home match at Sunderland and both teams disappearing down a cavernous hole at the Stadium of Lights....