Fenton Park Colliery

Overview

A colliery on the Fenton Park estate east of Fenton in the Potteries, worked for a century and a half from 1728 and, from 1790, run by the pottery manufacturers who needed its coal. Josiah Spode II, Thomas Wolfe and Thomas Minton were partners in the company that took the thirty-year lease of 1813, and by about 1840 it was the most notable colliery in Fenton, working eleven pits with some 250 men. It closed about 1879 — but the official return of collieries at work in 1880 still lists a Fenton Park Colliery Co. Limited at Longton. Seven men were killed there by a firedamp explosion in 1806, a year after six had died in the same pit.

History

Coal and ironstone were being worked on the Fenton Park estate by 1728, when eighteen small mines were in operation, probably by the Fenton family who then owned it. Mining rights over the estate, including Yew Tree farm, were let to Jeremiah Smith of Great Fenton in the second half of the century and, in 1790, leased to the Fenton Park Company — a partnership made up mainly of potters, among them Josiah Spode and John Harrison. This was a characteristic Potteries arrangement: manufacturers banding together to mine coal for their own ovens. John Aynsley, who had come to the Potteries from Northumberland late in the century, was the company’s first chairman, and by the end of the 1790s the colliery already had a Boulton and Watt steam engine; a second engine was bought in 1802–3 for £1,476 8s. Josiah Spode II bought into the company about 1802 and paid off its outstanding debts. A thirty-year lease was granted in 1813 to a similar group including Spode, Thomas Wolfe and Thomas Minton. Simeon Shaw described it about 1828 as “a colliery of great magnitude and value”, with a steam engine of about sixty horsepower working four lifts of pumps. John Ward, writing about 1838, found it “a large colliery worked for many years by the neighbouring potters as the Fenton Park Co., now in the hands of W. T. Copeland and others” — William Taylor Copeland having taken over assets from the Spode trustees. Ward singled the colliery out as the most notable in Fenton, and around 1840 eleven pits were at work employing about 250 men, with coal hauled mechanically up five inclines, one of them four hundred yards long by 1839, and much use made of underground boilers and steam engines. By about 1840 the Fenton Park and Oldfield companies had both passed into the hands of Charles Smith, at whose Longton colliery the agent was assaulted and three men ducked in the engine pool during the Chartist riots of 1842. A lease advertised in 1850 put the take at 197 acres of coal and ironstone under The Patches, Yew Tree and Fenton Park farms. Various companies ran the colliery afterwards, including one formed by Lawrence Armitsted in the early 1870s, and it was then worked jointly with a neighbouring pit called the Victoria; the Broadfield Colliery to the south had been worked in conjunction with it for part of the period before its own closure in the mid-1860s. Work ceased at the Victoria by 1877 and at Fenton Park itself about two years later.

Geology

Middle Coal Measures of the North Staffordshire coalfield — Black Band Group coals interleaved with sandstone, ironstone and clays. The coal is exposed at the surface over only about seventy square miles, but along the centre of that outcrop the seams are thicker than in any English coalfield except Lancashire, and the sequence is among the thickest coal-bearing successions in Britain. The estate’s pits worked coal and ironstone together, as the 1850 lease advertisement makes plain, and the long-flame coals of the field were what made it worth a potter’s while to own a colliery.

Workings

Eleven pits were at work about 1840. A Boulton and Watt steam engine was in place before 1800 and a second bought in 1802–3; Simeon Shaw described an engine of about sixty horsepower working four lifts of pumps. By 1839 coal was being hauled mechanically up five inclines, one of them four hundred yards long, and underground boilers and steam engines were much used. The 1877 six-inch Ordnance Survey shows a tramway running from Glover’s Farm Colliery and the Victoria and Fenton Park collieries, over older workings, to a wharf near the junction of Victoria Road and King Street in Fenton. Abandonment plans catalogued in 1929 record Fenton Park workings in coal and ironstone at Chalkey and Deepmine (1866) and Ragmine (1864).

Closure

The Victoria Colliery, worked jointly with Fenton Park in the 1870s, had stopped by 1877, and Fenton Park itself closed about two years later. The official return of collieries at work in 1880 nevertheless lists a Fenton Park Colliery Co. Limited at Longton, and the North Staffordshire Mining Group’s notes record the same company name for 1880 — so the working may have run a little later than the Victoria County History allows, or the company may have outlived the pit.

What remains

Nothing of the colliery is identifiable. The Fenton Park estate has been built over: Pool Street at Fenton Park was developed between 1898 and the early 1920s, and the municipal park that now carries the Fenton Park name was opened in 1924 over the site of old coal shafts at Fenton Low.

None identified.

Nearby mines

• Far Green Colliery — 3.7 km NW
• Wolstanton Colliery — 5.3 km NW
• Apedale Colliery — 8.4 km W
• Chatterley Whitfield Colliery — 8.7 km N
• Foxfield Colliery — 8.8 km SE

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

Disasters & major incidents

• Fenton Park Colliery explosion
  1806 · Explosion · 7 fatalities
  Ten men were about to begin the day’s work in one of the Fenton Park pits when firedamp exploded. Seven were killed; the other three were got out alive by the colliery company. Six men had died in the same pit from the same cause within the previous twelve months.

Recorded claims

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

• Coal and ironstone were being worked on the Fenton Park estate by 1728, when eighteen small mines were in operation, and the mines there are known to have been worked for 150 years from that date by the owners and their tenants. ¹
• Mining rights over the estate were leased in 1790 to the Fenton Park Company, made up mainly of potters including Josiah Spode and John Harrison; a thirty-year lease was granted in 1813 to a similar group including Spode, Wolfe and Minton. ^1,2
• John Ward singled Fenton Park out as the most notable colliery in Fenton about 1840, when eleven pits were in operation employing about 250 men, and William Taylor Copeland was an important member of the company. ^1,3
• The colliery had a Boulton and Watt engine before 1800 and bought a second in 1802–3 for £1,476 8s; Simeon Shaw described an engine of about sixty horsepower working four lifts of pumps about 1828. ³
• A lease advertised in 1850 offered the coal and ironstone mines under 197 acres of the Fenton Park estate, comprising The Patches, Yew Tree and Fenton Park farms. ¹
• The Victoria Colliery, worked jointly with Fenton Park, had ceased work by 1877 and the Fenton Park Colliery itself closed about two years later. (disputed) ¹
• The official list of collieries at work in 1880 returns a Fenton Park Colliery Co. Limited at Longton, and the North Staffordshire Mining Group’s notes give the same company name for that year. (disputed) ^4,3

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Fenton: economic history — A History of the County of Stafford, Volume 8 — Victoria County History, via British History Online
2. (secondary) Stoke-on-Trent local history: water, clay, coal — thepotteries.org
3. (secondary) Mould's Pits — F — North Staffordshire Mining Group
4. (secondary) List of coal mines UK 1880 — Coalmining History Resource Centre
5. (primary) Mining disasters in Great Britain, 1800–1819 — Coalmining History Resource Centre

Record created: 6 September 2026 · Last researched: 6 September 2026