Bayton Colliery

Overview

A small colliery on the southern edge of the Wyre Forest coalfield, in the parish of Bayton in west Worcestershire, working a high-sulphur coal that was no use for metal working or the domestic grate but was prized for brickmaking and, above all, for drying hops: the acrid fumes gave Teme Valley hops a flavour brewers wanted. Its problem was never the coal but the distance to a railway, solved in 1912 by an aerial ropeway nearly a mile and a half long running to the sidings at Cleobury Mortimer.

History

The first mines in the north of Bayton parish were worked from the Shakenhurst estate, centred on Shakenhurst Hall west of the village and held for centuries by the Meysey family. The lease was sold in 1895 to William Lawton Viggars, a partner in the Highley Mining Company, which had brought modern deep-sinking methods to the north of the coalfield. The company folded within a year, and Viggars gave up the mine in 1903, having been slightly burnt in an underground explosion the year before. In 1904 the Shakenhurst mining lease passed to James Smallshaw of Arscott Colliery near Shrewsbury, and by 1907 Bayton was profitable enough for him to consider a railway link to the Great Western at Cleobury Mortimer. It was never built, and Smallshaw left in 1910. Francis Whitworth Wright, a mining engineer from Halifax, bought the colliery in August 1911 and with backers from Lancashire formed the Bayton Colliery Company, registered in December 1914 with £8,000 of capital, taking the workforce to about seventy. The transport problem was answered instead by an aerial ropeway, built by R. White & Son in 1912 and driven by a steam engine burning the company's own coal. It ran 2,443 yards from the colliery to the sidings at Cleobury Mortimer station. To avoid crossing the Cleobury to Clows Top road at a point where it lay in Shropshire, an angle station was built so the ropeway could cross in Worcestershire; the turn spilled a great deal of coal from the baskets, which the company simply sold on the spot. The reserves at Bayton No. 1 were worked out in 1923 or shortly after and the company moved to Winwrick's Wood by the Dumbleton Brook, laying a tramway to the main road. It then went into haulage on its own account, selling direct to customers with a fleet of twelve one-ton Ford trucks and a seven-ton Clayton and Shuttleworth steam lorry. The ropeway was dismantled in the late 1920s. The Bayton Colliery Company employed more than a hundred men at its pits in and around Mamble through the 1930s and 1940s.

Geology

Bayton lies on the southern basin of the Wyre Forest coalfield, an area of about fifty square miles on the Shropshire and Worcestershire border which, despite the name, has almost no workable coal beneath the forest itself: the productive measures lie in two separate deposits on either side of it. The coal under Bayton is sulphur coal, high enough in sulphur to burn with an acrid smoke that ruled it out for metal working and for the house grate, but made it valuable for brickmaking and for hop drying, the fumes flavouring the hops.

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

Workings

Bayton No. 1 was the principal pit, on the Shakenhurst ground north of the village. When its reserves gave out in the 1920s the company opened new workings at Winwrick's Wood on the banks of the Dumbleton Brook, reached by a tramway laid down to the main road. The aerial ropeway of 1912 carried coal in baskets 2,443 yards to the Great Western sidings at Cleobury Mortimer, with an angle station part-way to keep the road crossing inside Worcestershire.

Closure

No date has been established for the end of working at Bayton itself. The Bayton Colliery Company was still employing over a hundred men around Mamble in the 1930s and 1940s, and the last pits in the district closed in the 1940s.

What remains

Very little is visible. Four low concrete pillars stand in the corner of a pasture field near the village, overgrown with hawthorn and used by cattle for shelter, easily taken for the base of a farm building. In the wood beside that field, mature ash and oak from the outside, lie the surface remains of Bayton No. 1 pit. Across the Wyre Forest coalfield generally there was no systematic restoration of mining sites, so a good deal of mining archaeology survives undisturbed in woodland and on derelict ground.

Four concrete pillars in a field near the village, and the surface remains of Bayton No. 1 pit in the adjoining wood.

Related mines

• Mamble Colliery — The Bayton Colliery Company worked pits in and around Mamble as well as at Bayton itself, and both belong to the small southern basin of the Wyre Forest coalfield working the same sulphur coal for hop drying and brickmaking.

Nearby mines

• Mamble Colliery — 1.8 km SW
• Catherton Colliery — 9.1 km NW, Shropshire
• Kinlet Colliery — 9.3 km NE, Shropshire
• Titterstone Clee Quarries — 11.2 km NW, Shropshire
• Highley Colliery — 11.4 km NE, Shropshire

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

Recorded claims

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

• The coal beneath Bayton is a sulphur coal, unsuitable for metal working or domestic use but valued for brickmaking and for drying hops, the sulphurous fumes giving Teme Valley hops a distinctive flavour in the beer. ¹
• R. White & Son built an aerial ropeway in 1912, driven by a steam engine burning the colliery's own coal, running 2,443 yards to the sidings at Cleobury Mortimer station, with an angle station so that the road crossing fell inside Worcestershire. It was dismantled in the late 1920s. ¹
• The reserves at Bayton No. 1 were exhausted in 1923 or shortly afterwards and were replaced by workings at Winwrick's Wood on the Dumbleton Brook. ¹
• The Bayton Colliery Company employed more than a hundred men at its pits in and around Mamble in the 1930s and 1940s; the workforce had been about seventy when the company was formed. ^1,2

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Treasures of Worcestershire's Past: 34 - Bayton Colliery — Worcestershire Archive & Archaeology Service
2. (observational) Wyre Forest Coalfield — Derelict Places

Record created: 9 September 2026 · Last researched: 9 September 2026