Conygre Colliery

Overview

Two pits at Timsbury, Upper Conygre sunk in 1791 and Lower Conygre in 1847, connected underground and worked together in the awkward steep measures of the Somerset coalfield until the First World War. Seven men and four horses were killed by an explosion between them in 1895.

History

Timsbury sat at the centre of the northern end of the Somerset coalfield, and eleven pits worked in the parish at one time or another; the earliest reference to coal here is in John Sambourne's will of 1572. An agreement to sink Upper Conygre was made on 24 January 1791, for a shaft eight feet across and 346 yards deep. When the Somerset Coal Canal was begun in 1795 its starting point at Gooseyard bridge in Timsbury parish served seven pits around the village, Upper and Lower Conygre among them. Lower Conygre was opened in 1847 and connected underground to the older pit, and in 1896 the two were merged into one undertaking. They were owned by Samborne, Smith and Company, and later by Beaumont, Kennedy and Company. Employment ran a little over two hundred through the 1890s and 1900s, working the Great Vein and the Top Little, Sliving and Bottom Little veins for coking, gas, household and steam coal. On the night maintenance shift of 6 February 1895 an explosion underground midway between the two pits killed seven men and four horses (see Disasters, below). The canal that had carried the coal was replaced by a railway in the early 1900s. Mining at Conygre ended with the First World War, and with it coal mining in the village itself.

Geology

The Somerset coalfield's Coal Measures, worked here as the Great Vein with the Top Little, Sliving and Bottom Little veins beneath and around it — thin, faulted and steeply inclined seams that made Somerset a hard coalfield to work and an early one to give up. The village's surface stone is a different thing entirely: White Lias limestone, quarried locally for building.

Workings

Upper Conygre was agreed in 1791 as a shaft eight feet in diameter and 346 yards deep. Lower Conygre followed in 1847 and was connected to it underground, which is why an explosion in 1895 could happen midway between the two, and why the official lists returned them sometimes separately and sometimes as one.

Closure

The pits were abandoned in 1916 after flooding. During an attempt to extend Lower Conygre's workings in 1914 the abandoned and flooded workings of the former Withy Mills Pit were broached, and the water drowned both Conygre pits. The Durham Mining Museum's returns give the colliery as closing in 1918 and the Lower pit in March 1914, which brackets the same events from the official side: the 1914 date is the breach, and the 1918 date is when the returns caught up. The Timsbury account gives the mechanism and is followed here.

What remains

Housing stands on the Upper Conygre site. Conygre Hall, built in 1973 on the miners' welfare field opposite and named after the pit, is the village hall; the welfare field itself had been bought for the miners out of a levy of a penny on every ton of coal raised locally. The Miners Memorial Garden near the Square was built in 1995, a hundred years after the explosion.

Nothing of the pits: the ground is built over. The memorial garden and the hall carry the name.

Redevelopment

New housing on the colliery ground, and a village hall on the welfare field.

Nearby mines

• Camerton Colliery — 1.6 km E
• Clandown Colliery — 2.0 km SE
• Braysdown Colliery — 3.4 km SE
• Writhlington Colliery — 3.5 km SW
• Norton Hill Colliery — 3.9 km S

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

Disasters & major incidents

• Conygre Pit explosion
  6 February 1895 · Explosion · 7 fatalities
  An explosion on the night maintenance shift at Lower Conygre, Timsbury, on 6 February 1895 killed seven men and four horses. Nine men were underground. The two who lived were working in a part of the pit ventilated from a different source, and the blast never reached them.

Recorded claims

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

• An agreement for the sinking of Upper Conygre Pit was made on 24 January 1791, for a shaft eight feet in diameter and 346 yards deep. ¹
• Lower Conygre — Conigre in some older spellings — was sunk in 1847 and connected underground to Upper Conygre, and in 1896 the two were merged. They belonged to Samborne, Smith and Company, recorded as the owners in 1908, and afterwards to Beaumont, Kennedy and Company. ^2,1
• The official Lists of Mines return the Great Vein with the Top Little, Sliving and Bottom Little veins, and coking, gas, household and steam coal. Employment was 215 at Upper Conygre in 1894, 239 across the colliery in 1900, 283 in 1905 and 167 by 1915. ²
• The Somerset Coal Canal, begun in 1795, started at the Gooseyard bridge in Timsbury parish and served the seven pits around the village — Amesbury, Mearns, Tyning, Hayeswood, Old Grove and the two Conygres. A railway replaced it in the early 1900s, the Great Western's Radford and Timsbury Halt serving the village. ¹
• The Durham Mining Museum's returns give the colliery as opened in 1791 and closed in 1918, with the Lower pit, sunk 1847, closed in March 1914. (disputed) ²
• The Timsbury accounts state that both Upper and Lower Conygre closed in 1916, ending coal mining in the village. (disputed) ¹
• The Upper Conygre Pit stood north of the centre of Timsbury by the corner of The Avenue and North Road, known as coal pit corner. Coal was mined there from as early as 1791, when a partnership called the Timsbury Coal Proprietors was created — Samborne Palmer, Jacob Mogg, William and John Crang, Alexander Adams and James Savage. ³
• The pit achieved fame on 9 July 1795, when it was reported that a wagon from it delivered to Mr Groom's yard in Bath a single piece of coal weighing 1 ton 5¾ hundredweight 26 pounds. Upper Conygre was one of the biggest suppliers of coal to Bath. ³
• During an attempt to extend the workings of Lower Conygre in 1914, the flooded and abandoned workings of the former Withy Mills Pit were broached. This flooded both Conygre pits, which led to their abandonment in 1916 and the end of coal mining in Timsbury. Many of the men then found work in other local pits, such as Pensford. ³
• Two shafts, 1,029 feet deep and 5 feet 6 inches in diameter, were dug to reach workable seams. The site is underlain by the Blue Lias Formation, interbedded mudstone and limestone, and below that the Coal Measures. ³
• The crenellated chimney of Upper Conygre Colliery was designed that way to make it acceptable to the inhabitants of Timsbury House, and the trees beside the colliery were grown to screen it from the same house. ³
• After the Second World War the site was a cement block works known as Wheeler's Yard, after its owner, until it closed in 2004. In 2020 building started on 26 houses and offices, and the development was named Upper Conygre in memory of the pit. ³

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Timsbury, Somerset — Wikishire
2. (secondary) Conygre Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
3. (secondary) Upper Conygre Pit — Timsbury community website

Record created: 10 September 2026 · Last researched: 11 September 2026