Eccleston Hall Colliery

Overview

A colliery on the Eccleston Hall estate a mile and a half west of St Helens, reopened from old flooded shafts by the Worsley Mesnes Colliery Company in the late 1880s and early 1890s and abandoned in 1910.

History

Coal had been worked on the Eccleston Hall estate, a mile and a half west of St Helens and the same distance north-east of Prescot, by the squire and a succession of lessees in the eighteenth century, and the estate was dotted with their old shafts. The Worsley Mesnes Colliery Company of Wigan, leasing the minerals from Samuel Taylor, reopened two of them, both sunk 84 yards to the Main Delf by the earlier lessees and both full of water to the surface. For more than two months iron barrels of 500 and 600 gallons were wound up the two shafts in turn, lifting some 550 gallons a minute, before pumps were lowered in stages after the falling water; the shafts were then sunk a further 137 yards to the Arley or Little Delf. In 1891 eighty men struck for weeks against a cut in their rate from four shillings to half a crown a ton. The colliery employed between 237 and 334 men in the 1890s. On 6 October 1909 two men were killed when a descending cage struck long bars left too near the shaft (see Disasters, below). It was abandoned in 1910.

Geology

Lancashire Coal Measures close to the New Red Sandstone outcrop, which lies about half a mile south of the shafts; the Flaggy Delf, Main Delf, Rushy Park and Arley (Little Delf) mines.

Workings

Two shafts 60 yards apart, both earlier sinkings to the Main Delf at 84 yards, deepened a further 137 yards; No. 1 was 9 feet and No. 2 13 feet in diameter below the old workings.

Closure

Abandoned in 1910; the Main Delf was abandoned that year and the Flaggy Delf in 1904.

What remains

Unknown.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Disasters & major incidents

• Eccleston Hall Colliery cage accident, 1909
  6 October 1909 · Winding / Shaft Accident · 2 fatalities
  Two men at Eccleston Hall Colliery, St Helens, were fatally injured in 1909 when the descending cage struck long bars they had left too near the shaft at a mouthing, tilting them up onto the men.

Recorded claims

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

• The Worsley Mesnes Colliery Company reopened two old shafts on the Eccleston Hall estate, both full of water, leasing the minerals from Samuel Taylor. ¹
• Water was raised in iron barrels of 500 and 600 gallons, about 550 gallons a minute, before the shafts were deepened 137 yards. ¹
• The colliery is listed as opened in 1885 and closed in 1910. ²
• It employed 282 men in 1894 and 334 in 1900. ²
• On 6 October 1909 two men were killed when a descending cage struck bars left too near the shaft. ²
• The Main Delf (Prescot) was abandoned in 1910. ³

Sources

1. (secondary) Eccleston Hall Colliery ????-1910 — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (primary) Eccleston Hall (UK) — Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) BGS mine plans: Eccleston Hall, Main Delf (Prescot), abandoned 1910 — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority

Record created: 16 October 2026 · Last researched: 16 October 2026