Fairbottom Colliery

Overview

Cannel coal pits near Ashton-under-Lyne, about two hundred feet deep, drained from around 1760 by a Newcomen atmospheric engine known locally as Fairbottom Bobs. The engine stopped in 1834, stood as a curiosity for a century, and was bought by Henry Ford in 1929 and shipped to Michigan, where it survives as probably the world's second-oldest steam engine.

History

Fairbottom Colliery worked cannel coal close to the River Medlock, about half a mile from Park Bridge near Ashton-under-Lyne, in pits some two hundred feet deep. It is remembered not for its coal but for the machine that kept it dry. Around 1760, or by another account 1764, a Newcomen-type atmospheric engine was installed at the Cannel Colliery at Fairbottom to pump the workings out. Its origin is not certain: it may have stood first at Norbury Coal Works some nine miles west, from where the Manchester Mercury of 9 October 1764 advertised a fire engine for sale whose cylinder dimensions match. The engine was rated at eleven horsepower, with a cylinder of twenty-eight inches bore and an eight-foot stroke driving a pump of eight inches bore that could raise water from two hundred and forty feet at fourteen strokes a minute. Its beam was timber, a single wooden king post strapped with wrought iron. The water it lifted ran along a wooden trough to top up the Fairbottom Branch Canal, two hundred metres away at Fenny Fields Bridge. Local people called it Fairbottom Bobs, from the bobbing of the beam. It stopped work in 1834 and was left standing. By the 1880s it had become a local curiosity, photographed with visitors in Victorian dress posed before it and its ivy-covered chimney of some twenty feet, and it was sometimes wrongly pointed out as Watt's first engine. It fell slowly into ruin over the following decades. In 1929 Henry Ford bought it. Herbert Morton was charged with dismantling, crating and shipping what remained to Dearborn, Michigan, where it is displayed in the Henry Ford Museum; Ford compensated the locality for the loss of its famous relic by paying for a footbridge across the river. The colliery was one of the seven pits held across Chadderton, Oldham and Middleton by the Chamber Colliery Company.

Geology

Worked cannel coal - a hard, bright coal that burns with a bright flame - in pits about two hundred feet deep in the Medlock valley near Park Bridge.

Workings

Cannel coal pits of about two hundred feet, drained by a Newcomen atmospheric engine of eleven horsepower with a twenty-eight inch cylinder and an eight-foot stroke, working a pump of eight inches bore at fourteen strokes a minute and lifting water from two hundred and forty feet. The engine's beam was a single wooden king post strapped with wrought iron, and the water it raised was carried along a wooden trough to feed the Fairbottom Branch Canal at Fenny Fields Bridge.

Closure

The pumping engine ceased work in 1834 and the site was left; the engine stood as a ruin and a local curiosity until Henry Ford bought it in 1929.

What remains

There is very little left to mark the site, which lies close to the River Medlock about half a mile from Park Bridge. The engine itself is in the Henry Ford Museum at Dearborn, Michigan.

Almost nothing above ground. The engine, its most substantial remain, was removed to Michigan in 1929; its site was excavated and recorded by industrial archaeologists in the 2000s.

Related mines

• Chamber Colliery — Both were pits of the Chamber Colliery Company, which held seven collieries across Chadderton, Oldham and Middleton.
• Oak Colliery, Hollinwood — Both were Chamber Colliery Company pits in the Oldham coalfield, Fairbottom the older by nearly a century.

Nearby mines

• Oak Colliery, Hollinwood — 2.9 km W
• Chamber Colliery — 3.0 km NW
• Hyde Colliery — 7.0 km S
• Bradford Colliery — 7.3 km SW
• Pendleton Colliery — 12.1 km W

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

What's uncertain

Points where sources disagree or the record could not be settled; both accounts are kept. All open questions in the archive.

• The engine's origin is unclear. It may have been installed first at Norbury Coal Works, some nine miles to the west, from where the Manchester Mercury of 9 October 1764 carried an advertisement for a fire engine for sale whose cylinder dimensions matched the Fairbottom engine. (uncertain) ¹

Recorded claims

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

• A Newcomen-type atmospheric engine was installed at the Cannel Colliery at Fairbottom around 1760, or by another account 1764, to drain the pits. It was rated at eleven horsepower, with a cylinder of twenty-eight inches bore and an eight-foot stroke driving a pump of eight inches bore that could raise water from two hundred and forty feet at fourteen strokes a minute, and its beam was a single wooden king post strapped with wrought iron. ¹
• The engine's origin is unclear. It may have been installed first at Norbury Coal Works, some nine miles to the west, from where the Manchester Mercury of 9 October 1764 carried an advertisement for a fire engine for sale whose cylinder dimensions matched the Fairbottom engine. (uncertain) ¹
• The pits were about two hundred feet deep, and the water the engine raised was carried along a wooden trough to top up the Fairbottom Branch Canal two hundred metres away at Fenny Fields Bridge. The engine stopped work in 1834. ²
• By the 1880s the engine had become a local curiosity, sometimes mistakenly called Watt's first engine. In 1929 Henry Ford bought it and had Herbert Morton dismantle, crate and ship what remained to Dearborn, Michigan, where it is displayed; Ford compensated the locality by paying for the construction of a footbridge across the river. ^1,2

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Fairbottom Bobs — Wikipedia
2. (secondary) Fairbottom Bobs, near Ashton-under-Lyne — Ashton-under-Lyne.com
3. (secondary) Oldham Coalfield — Wikipedia

Record created: 23 September 2026 · Last researched: 23 September 2026