Cannock Chase No. 8 Colliery

Overview

A Heath Hayes colliery sunk in 1868 that became the Cannock Chase Colliery Company's last working pit as its older workings exhausted, absorbing No. 9 Colliery in 1951 before its own closure in January 1962.

History

Cannock Chase No. 8 Colliery was sunk in 1868 at Heath Hayes, one of around ten pits worked in the Chasewater area by the Cannock Chase Colliery Company -- a business established by the engineer John Robinson McLean in partnership with William Chawner, leasing the mineral rights from the Marquis of Anglesey. The wider company's collieries passed to the National Coal Board on nationalisation in 1947. By the 1950s most of the company's older pits had exhausted their economic reserves, leaving No. 8 as the last still working; the nearby No. 9 Colliery was merged into it in 1951. No. 8 itself closed in January 1962, after which its colliery railway was dismantled in the early 1960s.

Geology

Coal of the Cannock Chase field; the seams worked are not recorded.

Workings

No reliable detail on No. 8's own specific underground workings has yet been located, beyond its absorption of the neighbouring No. 9 Colliery's workings in 1951.

Closure

Closed in January 1962, by which point it had been the Cannock Chase Colliery Company's last operating pit for over a decade; one secondary source gives an alternative 1862-1961 date range, not reconciled with the Cannock Chase Mining History Society's own primary timeline (1868-1962) used here.

What remains

Nothing is recorded of the colliery site's own present condition.

Related mines

• Cannock Chase No. 4 Pit — Both numbered pits of the Cannock Chase Colliery Company around Chasetown.

What's uncertain

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

• One source gives 1862 as the opening year of Cannock Chase No. 8, rather than the 1868 date already recorded here; kept as an unreconciled alternative rather than overriding the existing, more specific date. (disputed) ³

Recorded claims

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

• Cannock Chase Colliery No. 8 pit was sunk in 1868 at Heath Hayes; No. 9 Colliery merged into it in 1951, and No. 8 itself closed in January 1962. ¹
• Cannock Chase Colliery Co. Ltd's collieries, including No. 8, passed to the National Coal Board on nationalisation in 1947. ²
• One source gives 1862 as the opening year of Cannock Chase No. 8, rather than the 1868 date already recorded here; kept as an unreconciled alternative rather than overriding the existing, more specific date. (disputed) ³

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Rough Time Line — Cannock Chase Mining History Society
2. (primary) Durham Mining Museum: Cannock Chase Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
3. (observational) Cannock Chase No8 Colliery, closed January 1962 — Cannock Chase heritage Facebook group

Record created: 31 August 2026 · Last researched: 1 September 2026