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 were identified from the sources checked for this pass; earlier bell-pit remains have been found nearby.

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.

• 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

Sources

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

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