Coalpit Heath Colliery

Overview

The Bristol coalfield's last working deep mine, sunk at Frog Lane in the early 1850s and kept going until 1949, when it was finally beaten not by exhausted coal but by rising water once a neighbouring colliery stopped pumping.

History

The Frog Lane Pit, at Coalpit Heath on the northern edge of the Bristol coalfield's Kingswood anticline, was sunk in the early 1850s; by the 1870s Sir Greville Smyth is recorded as an owner, and the Smyth family retained an interest in the colliery until the industry's nationalisation in 1947. The wider Bristol and South Gloucestershire coalfield had reached its peak in 1879 with 21 pits working, but had contracted to just 11 by 1900 and to five by 1920 as national demand fell and cheap fuel oil competed with coal; Frog Lane was one of only three collieries left in South Gloucestershire by then, alongside Parkfield, near Pucklechurch, and the interconnected Speedwell and Deep Pit workings inside the Bristol city boundary.

Hanham colliery closed in 1926 and winding stopped at Deep Pit by 1930; Speedwell and Parkfield both closed in 1936. That left Frog Lane as the last working deep mine in the entire Bristol coalfield, extracting the Hard, Top and High coal seams. Parkfield's closure proved decisive for Frog Lane's own survival: once Parkfield's pumps stopped, water levels across the linked underground workings began to rise, and by 1949 the pumps at Frog Lane could no longer keep pace. The colliery was abandoned that year, bringing to an end almost seven centuries of coal working recorded in the wider area since at least 1223.

Geology

Worked the Hard, Top and High coal seams of the Bristol and South Gloucestershire coalfield, on the northern edge of the Kingswood anticline structure that also carried the Bristol city collieries.

Workings

A deep shaft colliery, part of a linked and interdependent underground drainage system with neighbouring pits — most critically Parkfield, near Pucklechurch, whose own pumps had kept water levels down across the wider coalfield until its 1936 closure.

Closure

Abandoned in 1949, the last deep mine working in the Bristol coalfield, defeated by rising water once Parkfield's pumps stopped thirteen years earlier.

What remains

Little survives above ground; the remains of many earlier, shallower bell pits were uncovered nearby during construction of the Kendleshire golf course.

No substantial surface remains of Frog Lane Pit itself are recorded; earlier bell-pit remains have been found nearby.

Related mines

• Mayshill Colliery — Frog Lane, the Coalpit Heath Coal Co.'s main pit, worked with Mayshill and Nibley as one group and closed with them in 1949.
• Ram Hill Colliery — Ram Hill was sunk by the same operator, the Coalpit Heath Colliery Company.

Recorded claims

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

• Frog Lane Pit was sunk in the early 1850s; by the 1870s Sir Greville Smyth is recorded as an owner, and the Smyth family retained an interest until nationalisation in 1947. ¹
• Frog Lane became the last working deep mine in the Bristol coalfield after Hanham (1926), Deep Pit (winding stopped 1930), and Speedwell and Parkfield (both 1936) all closed. ²
• Frog Lane was abandoned in 1949 when rising water levels, caused by the 1936 abandonment of Parkfield's pumps, finally overwhelmed the pumps at the last deep mine in the area. ²
• Located at about 51.526 N, 2.470 W. ¹
• Mindat records the Coal Pit Heath Co. as owner in 1855-60 and 1875-80 and Sir Greville Smith, Bart., in 1865-70, and dates the colliery's opening to 1853 and its closure to October 1949. ³

Sources

1. (secondary) Coalpit Heath — Wikipedia
2. (secondary) King Coal's Final Victim — Regional Historian (John Penny, UWE), Issue 7, Summer 2001
3. (secondary) Coalpit Heath Colliery, Westerleigh, South Gloucestershire — Mindat

Record created: 27 August 2026 · Last researched: 27 August 2026