Ashton's Field Colliery

Overview

Ashton's Field was one of the Bridgewater Trustees' Little Hulton collieries, sunk in the 1860s alongside Ellesmere and Linnyshaw and worked afterwards by Bridgewater Collieries and Manchester Collieries. It raised coking, gas, household, manufacturing and steam coal from the Cannel, Plodder, Trencherbone and Yard mines, and employed 483 people in 1894 and 671 by 1923. Coal winding stopped in the late 1920s, and what was left of its take was allocated to Brackley, extending that colliery's life to 1964. The site kept a pumping station going into the 1950s: eleven people in the 1954 return, nine of them on the surface.

History

The Bridgewater Trustees sank deep pits at Ashton's Field, Ellesmere and Linnyshaw during the 1860s, part of the estate's shift from the shallow workings and underground canals of Worsley to deep mining on the Manchester coalfield. The Lists of Mines record 483 people in 1894, of whom 436 worked below ground, raising coking, gas, household, manufacturing and steam coal from the Cannel, Plodder, Trencherbone and Yard mines. Employment dipped to 295 in 1900 and then rose steadily as the Nos. 1 and 2 pits: 375 in 1905, 408 in 1910, 608 in 1915 and 671 in 1923, working the Plodder by then. The colliery passed with the rest of the estate's pits from the Bridgewater Trustees to Bridgewater Collieries Ltd and, in 1929, to Manchester Collieries. Coal winding ended in the late 1920s and the remainder of its take, with Wharton Hall's, was allocated to Brackley Colliery, which was hemmed in by old workings and whose life that allocation extended to 1964. Ashton's Field itself was still returned in 1954 as a pumping station with eleven people, only two of them below ground.

Geology

Ashton's Field worked the Lancashire Coal Measures under Little Hulton — the Cannel, Plodder, Trencherbone and Yard mines in the 1890s, narrowing to the Plodder by 1905. The same seams run through the neighbouring Bridgewater pits, and it was the unworked remainder of this take that Brackley was given when its own ground ran out.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (well documented example)

Workings

Two shafts, returned as the Nos. 1 and 2 pits from 1905. After coal winding ended the site was kept as a pumping station, a common fate for a colliery whose workings still drained ground its neighbours were working.

Closure

Coal winding ceased in the late 1920s and the remainder of the take was allocated to Brackley Colliery, extending Brackley's life to 1964. The site continued as a pumping station, still returned in 1954 with eleven people, nine of them on the surface.

What remains

The colliery site is open grassland crossed by footpaths. The route of its mineral railway is walked as a public path, and the Bridgewater colliery railway nearby is now the Linnyshaw Loopline cycle path.

Open grassland crossed by footpaths; the route of the mineral railway survives as a public path.

Related mines

• Brackley Colliery — The remainder of Ashton's Field's take was allocated to Brackley from the late 1920s, which is what extended Brackley's life to 1964; both were Bridgewater collieries at Little Hulton.
• Ellesmere Colliery — Both were deep pits sunk by the Bridgewater Trustees on the Worsley estate during the 1860s, alongside Linnyshaw.
• Linnyshaw Colliery — Both were deep pits sunk by the Bridgewater Trustees on the Worsley estate during the 1860s, alongside Ellesmere.

Disasters & major incidents

• Ashton's Field Colliery roof fall, 1901
  21 March 1901 · Collapse / Roof Fall · 2 fatalities

  Two colliers at the Bridgewater Trustees' Ashton's Field Colliery, Little Hulton, were killed on 21 March 1901 by a fall from two slips, after an hour's talk about putting up a prop.

  On 21 March 1901 two colliers at the Bridgewater Trustees' Ashton's Field Colliery, Little Hulton, James Gorton, 26, and Samuel Jackson, 58, were killed by a fall of roof in the roadway of their working place, near the face. The stone came away from two pronounced slips. They had had several warnings of the danger and had talked for an hour about putting up a prop.

What's uncertain

Points where sources disagree or the record could not be settled; both accounts are kept. All open questions in the archive.

• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Ashtons Field' (catalogue SFE250, Surface, undated in the catalogue); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain) ³

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Deep pits were sunk at Ashton's Field, Ellesmere and Linnyshaw by the Bridgewater Trustees during the 1860s. ¹
• The colliery worked the Cannel, Plodder, Trencherbone and Yard mines in the 1890s, and the Plodder alone by 1905. ²
• The Lists of Mines record 483 people in 1894, 608 in 1915 and 671 in 1923; the 1954 return is eleven people at a pumping station, two of them below ground. ²
• The remainder of the takes of Ashton's Field and Wharton Hall was allocated to Brackley Colliery from the late 1920s, extending Brackley's life to 1964. ¹
• The colliery passed from the Bridgewater Trustees to Bridgewater Collieries Ltd and then to Manchester Collieries Ltd. ²
• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Ashtons Field' (catalogue SFE250, Surface, undated in the catalogue); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain) ³

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Bridgewater Collieries — Engole
2. (primary) Durham Mining Museum: Ashton's Field Colliery — Durham Mining Museum, from the Lists of Mines
3. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans: ASHTONS FIELD — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority
4. (observational) Path on the route of the former railway to Ashton's Field Colliery (photographed 2023) — Geograph Britain and Ireland, Kevin Waterhouse

Record created: 11 September 2026 · Last researched: 11 September 2026