Birch Coppice Miners Memorial

The Birch Coppice miners' memorial, at the entrance to Birch Coppice Business Park near Dordon, is a ten-foot monument crowned with a replica Davy lamp, lit at night, inside a brick wall engraved with the names of more than a thousand men from the Birch Coppice, Wood End and Birchmoor collieries. Two councillors who had worked the pits gathered the names; the site's developer paid for it.

The mining history in this record

Birch Coppice Colliery at Hall End closed in 1986, and in 1997 IM Properties bought the disused site from UK Coal and turned it into a business park and freight terminal. The memorial was the idea of two North Warwickshire Borough councillors, Pete Morson and John Winter, who had themselves worked at the collieries. They appealed for the names of former workers and of relatives who had died, and were answered by people as far away as Spain and Australia.

IM Properties funded the memorial with a £50,000 donation, and it was unveiled before former miners and local dignitaries; the company dates it to 2012 and the local paper's report of the unveiling to April 2013.

People

Pete Morson and John Winter, North Warwickshire Borough councillors and former miners, who conceived the memorial. Kevin Ashfield, development director of IM Properties.

Legacy today

The memorial stands at the business park entrance, a giant miner's lamp on a brick pedestal with benches set round it, its lamp illuminated at night. Visitors were invited to sign an official book, and Morson set about compiling a book of the names, photographs, stories and sayings of the Birch Coppice mines.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each tagged with how solidly it's grounded and attached to the source(s) that support it. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• The memorial is a ten-foot monument crowned with a replica Davy lamp, inside a brick wall engraved with the names of former workers. (documented fact) ^1,2
• More than a thousand names of men from Birch Coppice, Wood End and Birchmoor collieries are on the wall. (documented fact) ^1,2
• It was the idea of two North Warwickshire Borough councillors, Pete Morson and John Winter, who had worked at the collieries, and they gathered the names by public appeal. (contemporary account) ¹
• IM Properties, owner of Birch Coppice Business Park, paid for it with a £50,000 donation. (contemporary account) ^1,3
• The memorial was unveiled in April 2013. (contemporary account, disputed) ¹
• IM Properties erected the memorial in 2012. (documented fact, disputed) ³

Mines

• Birch Coppice Colliery — Warwickshire
  The memorial stands at the entrance to Birch Coppice Business Park, on the site of Birch Coppice Colliery, and carries the names of the colliery's men.
• Birchmoor Colliery — Warwickshire
  Former workers of Birchmoor Colliery are among the names on the memorial wall at Birch Coppice.

Real-world mining concepts used here

Coal, Colliery, Safety Lamp

Sources

1. (secondary) Miners' memorial unveiled at site of former Birch Coppice Colliery at Dordon — Coventry Telegraph
2. (observational) Birch Coppice Mining Memorial (Geograph 4034686) — Geograph
3. (secondary) Birch Coppice Business Park — IM Properties (Birch Coppice Business Park)

Record created: 5 October 2026 · Last researched: 5 October 2026