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.

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

No reliable current-condition detail specific to the colliery site has yet been located.

Abandoned workings can be dangerous — unstable ground, uncapped shafts, flooding and bad air are common even where a site looks safe from the surface. This entry describes history and general location only; it is not an access guide.

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

Photographs & further reading

This page doesn't try to reproduce everything — these are the best original sources found for this mine.

Sources

1. (primary) Rough Time Line — Cannock Chase Mining History Society
2. (primary) Durham Mining Museum: Cannock Chase Colliery — Durham Mining Museum

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