Blackrod Colliery

Overview

A Lancashire coalfield colliery at Blackrod between Wigan and Bolton, worked by William Woods and Sons and recorded by the Durham Mining Museum as opening in 1855 and closing in 1930. It was a group of numbered pits rather than one shaft, with Nos. 1, 2, 4 and 5 returned separately in the Lists of Mines and nearly 300 people at the No. 11 in 1894. The name also attaches to a firedamp explosion of 6 October 1836 that killed twelve, five of them women, and to the Blackrod Colliery Company, a separate concern registered in 1933 that later owned Ellerbeck.

History

Blackrod lies about four miles north-east of Wigan in the Lancashire coalfield, in what is now the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton. Coal was worked here on a scale: in 1869 the collieries at work in the township included Anderton Hall, Dootson Vauze, Park Hall, Rigby Hill, Marklands and Blackrod itself.

The Durham Mining Museum gives the colliery's owners as William Woods and Sons, an opening date of 1855 and a closure in 1930, and records its individual pits: a No. 1, closed in 1905, a No. 4 opened in 1895 and a No. 5 opened in 1898. The Lists of Mines return them separately, which gives a picture of the group shifting from one pit to another over time. In 1894 the No. 11 employed 288 people, the No. 2 176 and the No. 5 72. By 1896 the No. 1 had 246, the No. 2 133 and the No. 4 five. In 1900 the No. 2 is marked abandoned with 40, while the No. 1 had 172, the No. 4 98 and the No. 5 137; by 1905 the No. 4 was the largest at 233, and by 1910 it was down to 158. The coal was sold as gas, household, manufacturing and steam coal.

The name carries something older and darker. Twelve people were killed at Blackrod Colliery on 6 October 1836, five of them women or girls: Alice and Margaret Anderton, Sarah Grayson, Ellin Sherrington and Catherine Wilkinson, all six years before the Mines and Collieries Act 1842 stopped women working underground. The Coal Mining History Resource Centre gives that pit as Mr Blundell's, worked with safety lamps but with naked lights taken in too (see Disasters, below); the museum's own dating of this colliery to 1855 suggests it was a different undertaking.

A separate company bearing the place name appears much later. The Blackrod Colliery Co. Ltd was registered in 1933 with its office at Chorley Road, Blackrod, to carry on business as colliery proprietors, the Colliery Year Book noting that at the time of going to press particulars of the pits owned were not available. It took over from Ellerbeck Collieries Ltd, and owned Ellerbeck Colliery at Coppull from the mid 1930s to 1946, employing 50 below ground and 22 on the surface there and working the Bone, Wigan Six Feet and New seams.

Geology

Blackrod worked the Lancashire coalfield in the Wigan district, whose Middle Coal Measures carry the thick seams that made the field. The seams named in connection with the Blackrod Colliery Company's later holding at Ellerbeck give the flavour of the local sequence: the Bone, the Wigan Six Feet and the New coal. No seam list specific to the Blackrod pits themselves is recorded, and the museum's returns give products rather than seams.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (historical documentary reference)

Workings

A group of numbered pits worked as one undertaking, returned separately in the Lists of Mines as Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5 and 11. The No. 1 closed in 1905; the No. 4 was opened in 1895 and the No. 5 in 1898, each with its own grid reference, so the group moved across the ground over its life rather than deepening in one place.

Closure

The Durham Mining Museum gives 1930 as the closure of the colliery, and records the No. 1 pit as having closed in 1905 while the No. 2 is marked abandoned in the 1900 return. No account of the reasons for the final closure is recorded. The Blackrod Colliery Co. Ltd, registered in 1933, is a later and separate concern and its ownership of Ellerbeck ran on to 1946.

What remains

Nothing is recorded of the colliery site as it stands.

Unknown. No account of surviving structures at any of the Blackrod pits is recorded.

Disasters & major incidents

• Blackrod Colliery explosion, 1836
  6 October 1836 · Explosion · 12 fatalities
  On 6 October 1836 firedamp exploded in Mr Blundell's pit at Blackrod, near Bolton, soon after the fireman, Thomas Challender, had made his inspection and let the men down. The pit was worked with safety lamps, but naked lights were taken in as well. Twelve died, the fireman among them, and five of the dead were women and girls, the youngest ten. Inquests under three coroners returned accidental death.

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 'Blackrod' (catalogue 12606, Ravine Tops, Ravine Bottoms, dated 1939); 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.

• The Durham Mining Museum records Blackrod Colliery as opened in 1855, closed in 1930 and owned by William Woods and Sons, with a No. 1 pit closed in 1905, a No. 4 opened in 1895 and a No. 5 opened in 1898. ¹
• The Lists of Mines return the pits separately: in 1894 the No. 11 employed 288, the No. 2 176 and the No. 5 72; in 1896 the No. 1 had 246; in 1900 the No. 2 is marked abandoned while the No. 1 had 172, the No. 4 98 and the No. 5 137; by 1905 the No. 4 was the largest at 233 and by 1910 it had fallen to 158. ¹
• The Blackrod Colliery Co. Ltd was registered in 1933 at Chorley Road, Blackrod, taking over from Ellerbeck Collieries Ltd, and owned Ellerbeck Colliery at Coppull into the 1940s. The 1933 Colliery Year Book recorded that particulars of the pits it owned were not available. ²
• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Blackrod' (catalogue 12606, Ravine Tops, Ravine Bottoms, dated 1939); 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. (primary) Blackrod Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
2. (primary) Blackrod Colliery Co., Ltd. — Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans: BLACKROD — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority

Record created: 9 September 2026 · Last researched: 10 September 2026