Lancashire Coal Seams.

[John]

Those seams that have been mined were given names, which reflected their quality (Brassey Coal, Stone Coal, Crank Coal, etc), their thickness (Five Yard Coal, Main Coal, etc), or locality (Hollin Coal, Mountain Mine Coal, etc). In most areas the
coal seams dip at gradients of between 1 in 3 and 1 in 10.

[dazbt]

Jun 26, 2008 19:47:14 GMT -5 John said:

Those seams that have been mined were given names, which reflected their quality (Brassey Coal, Stone Coal, Crank Coal, etc), their thickness (Five Yard Coal, Main Coal, etc), or locality (Hollin Coal, Mountain Mine Coal, etc). In most areas the
coal seams dip at gradients of between 1 in 3 and 1 in 10.

I know it isn't quite Lancashire related and I agree with all that you say about coal seams often being named in the way you describe, but here's one I'd love to know the origins of, I know that someone will have the answer;
Where did the Ragman seam in Staffordshire get it's name from?

[John]

No idea Daz, I'm still on the lookout for area coal seam names.
In Notts the low main seam went under Tupton at some pits, Parkgate and Ashgate were the same seam, so it differed from pit to pit
It only becomes apparent when you get a seam chart of a shaft or colliery and know the seam order at a known pit.
I know your Barnsley bed was known as Deep Hard further south, you had top hard the hazles, that thin seam we called dunsil which in Notts had a fireclay layer in the middle of the seam. And a few others bore the same names in both fields.

[philipford734]

I started work in the Lacashire area. The seams that I remember are Peacock, Earthy Delph, London Delph, Yard Mine, Crombrouke,
Higher Florida, Lower Florida, Wigan 4ft. Wigan 5ft. Trencherbone,
Plodder, Haig Yard, Queen Mine, Rushy Park and Arley Mine.
This was the names used in West Lancashire. In the East and Burnley area Rushy Park and the Arley Mine where known as Upper Mountain Mine and Lowe Mountain Mine.
Other seams that I have read about in Lancs are Ravin, Doe, Ince 6ft. Wigan 9ft, Rams.

[John]

I noticed some errors in my last post here, Parkgate was the Piper seam, then Tupton, also known as Low Main.. odd thing it was also called the Furnace seam at some pits, but the Furnace seam at other pits was one in the upper measures not the lower measures.

On my rebuild of the website, I have included a chart of all Notts seams, both upper and lower measures. I'll also be including charts of seam depths and thicknesses in the shafts of collieries. So far I only have some of Notts pits, but hope to have information on all old NCB pits/pits at time of Vestment.

[philipford734]

Some more Lancashire seams that I have rememberd.
Rodger, Felcroft, Potato Delph, Pidgeon House, Little Delph, Sir John, Bastian, Cannel, Ravenhead Higher, Ravenhead Lower, Main Delph and Little Delph.

[dazbt]

a few more;
BLACK MOSS
JET AMBER
HIGHER CHAULMBER
NINE FEET
ORRELL
STUBBS
HIGHER FLORIDA
LOWER FLORIDA
LADY
CANNEL
INFERIOR CANNEL
SIX INCH
INCH
KERSHAW
TRENCHERBONE
BASSETT
BLACK
LOWER MOUNTAIN
HIGHER (UPPER) MOUNTAIN
MOUNTAIN FOUR FEET
LOWER YARD
DOE
DOE TOPS
YARD
TWO YARD
HYNES
FAIRBOTTOM
CROMBOUKE (sp?)
UPPER FOOT
MARY
PASTURE
KING
DANDY
ALBERT
MAIDEN
DODD HOLE
RAVIN
GINGHAM
FOGGS
FURNACE
LAMBWELL
TOWN LANE
LOWER BENT
PLODDER
CROCKERS
SHELL
FULL EDGE
FIRECLAY
GANNISTER
PEACOCK
BURNLEY FOUR FEET
STONE
FIRST
TWO FEET
PARKER
HORSE
ARLEY
BATELY
SIX FEET
ROGER.
LAMBWELL

[John]

That's a lot of seams!! Although from recollection, both Yorkshire and Lanc's had three coal measures, "Upper, Middle and Lower. The Upper was missing in the Notts and Derbyshire fields, so what we called the "Upper" was your "Middle"

[dazbt]

Jun 2, 2010 6:13:57 GMT -5 John said:

That's a lot of seams!! Although from recollection, both Yorkshire and Lanc's had three coal measures, "Upper, Middle and Lower. The Upper was missing in the Notts and Derbyshire fields, so what we called the "Upper" was your "Middle"

I'm fairly sure that quite a few of those in that list will be duplicated, even within a relatively small area around Barnsley some of the seams were known by several "official" names.
An even more amazing list is the one of Lancashire coal mines, around Wigan alone there were hundreds.

[John]

Reading through a geology book of the late 1800's Daz, even they used to get confused with the names of seams. How they used to identify a seam from bore holes was by the flora and fauna found in the sedimentary rocks above the seam. All well and good if it existed above that seam section where the bore holes was.

I got somewhat confused with the seam names in Nottingham during my recent researches.
Parkgate was one seam I couldn't crack for a long time and thought maybe it was the Ashgate seam, turned out to be the Piper seam, probably the same Piper you had in Yorkshire. Tupton and Low Main also stumped me for a while, same seam!! Even locally in Notts, there are two known "furnace seams" Tupton is known as the furnace seam at some pits whereas most others the Furnace is in the Upper coal measures.
One would have thought the old NCB would have standardised seam names throughout the country.

[dazbt]

Jun 2, 2010 12:18:07 GMT -5 John said:

Reading through a geology book of the late 1800's Daz, even they used to get confused with the names of seams. How they used to identify a seam from bore holes was by the flora and fauna found in the sedimentary rocks above the seam. All well and good if it existed above that seam section where the bore holes was.

I got somewhat confused with the seam names in Nottingham during my recent researches.
Parkgate was one seam I couldn't crack for a long time and thought maybe it was the Ashgate seam, turned out to be the Piper seam, probably the same Piper you had in Yorkshire. Tupton and Low Main also stumped me for a while, same seam!! Even locally in Notts, there are two known "furnace seams" Tupton is known as the furnace seam at some pits whereas most others the Furnace is in the Upper coal measures.
One would have thought the old NCB would have standardised seam names throughout the country.

I've never heard the title of Piper being given to any seam in Yorkshire John, certainly over the border into Derbyshire it was used but not in any Yorkshire pit that I know (or rather knew) of, which Yorkshire pits have you seen it being refered to the Piper seam?
The Parkgate seam was in my experience a seam that varied so much in all aspects within a relatively short distance between pits working it, the section, the quality, the roof, the floor and the difficulty in cutting it. It was often worked at opposite sides of the same pit and provided such different conditions it was difficult to believe that it was the same seam.

[John]

I'm probably getting mixed up with the Parkgate seam Daz. Which is the Piper seam in Notts, and some pits called it the Parkgate. Last face of Piper I worked on was prone to convergence and deteriorated very quickly. That was 43's at Clifton, where the first DECMT was installed in the East Midlands, but it was only sent there because we were up the creek without a paddle.
From what I've read, Parkgate was a failure at Cotgrave too.
Your Silkstone must be what I know as the Blackshale seam. too.

[erichall]

Having worked in the S.Yorks and N Derbyshire coalfields, I often found difficulty in correlating the seams between the two areas , but only some 10-15 surface miles apart. The one true correlation I found was that the lowest seam in either of the coalfields was remarkably similar in all respects - In S Yorks it was the Silkstone seam and in N Derbys. it was the Blackshale.
The reasoning behind the Yorks naming of seams was usually that the seam was named after a local village or town where the seam outcropped. I never discovered the naming of the Derbyshire seams, although I do know for certain that the 'Two Foot' Seam was originally called the Sough Seam, a name associated with poorer quality coal.

[John]

If the Blackshale is the same as the Notts Blackshale Eric, then there are some seams below that, no idea if they are workable, depth, quality etc... but here they are.
Mickley.
Kilburn.
Wingfield Flags.
Horton.
Alton.

They are the only records of seams, I think below Alton is the Milstone Grit sandstone layer.

At Silverhill Colliery the Blackshale was 61inches thick and at 418 yards depth and at Cotgrave it was at 2031ft 2ins depth, listed as 1ft but that's obviously wrong, I think it should be 10ft thick, a typo in some info I got from the BGS. At least the photos suggest 10 feet thick I have...

One thing to remember, Yorkshire has all three coal measures, top, middle and bottom, Notts and most of Derbyshire only has middle and bottom coal measures, probably due to glacial action thousands of years back.
So Notts started at the High Main seam, then Clowne, Main Bright, High Hazles then Top Hard....etc..

Now south of Nottingham, in fact also west of the city, Top Hard is close to the surface, and somewhere between Wollaton and Stanton Ironworks in Derbyshire it outcrops.
At the old Wollaton Colliery Top Hard was 38ft 2inches below the surface, to the west of Wollaton Park it was probably worked as bell pits during the 15th,16th and 17th century's by Lord Middleton.