Flowery Field Colliery

Overview

Swire and Lees' Black Mine pit at Flowery Field, Newton, near Hyde, with a 160-yard shaft and a long engine incline below it, joined by a tramway to the Peak Forest Canal. An explosion in April 1842 killed seventeen; the pit had gone from the map by 1847.

History

Flowery Field Colliery worked the Black Mine at Newton, near Hyde, on the Dukinfield and Newton estates of the Astley family. Grace's Guide identifies it with the engine pit 147½ feet deep that Bateman and Sherratt sank on the Black Mine at Newton in 1822, where a 28-horsepower engine set up at the bottom of the shaft hauled wagons up an incline of 333 yards; in 1823 Mrs Astley of Dukinfield Lodge gave a breakfast for twelve guests in the engine house, 450 feet below ground.

By 1842 the pit was leased to Samuel Swire and Henry Lees, partners in the Dukinfield Coal Company, and employed about sixty men and boys. The shaft was 160 yards deep; from its bottom, inclines worked by an underground engine fed by two furnaces led down to a horse road of 900 yards, and a jig-brow led to old workings. A tramway about three-quarters of a mile long carried the coal to the Newton Wood branch of the Peak Forest Canal. On 8 April 1842 gas that had gathered in a dirt-hole below the level fired, it was thought from a boy's candle. Seventeen of the twenty-five in that part of the pit died, most of them suffocated as they tried to escape through the afterdamp, and four of the six mules in the level were killed. By the 1847 tithe map the tramway was disused and the colliery no longer shown.

Geology

Lancashire and Cheshire Coal Measures at Hyde: the Black Mine, worked on a steep dip by inclines from the shaft bottom.

Workings

A downcast of 160 yards and an upcast 60 yards from it; an underground steam engine with two furnaces hauling an incline from the shaft bottom; a 900-yard horse road; a tramway to the Newton Wood branch of the Peak Forest Canal.

Closure

Not shown on the 1847 tithe map, by which time its tramway appears disused.

What remains

Unknown.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Disasters & major incidents

• Black Mine Pit explosion, 1842
  8 April 1842 · Explosion · 17 fatalities
  At about eleven o'clock on 8 April 1842 an explosion in Swyre and Lees' Black Mine pit at Flowery Field, Newton, near Hyde, killed 17 of the 26 below. Ten were found at the far end of the mine, where they had run for safety.

What's uncertain

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

• In 1822 Bateman and Sherratt sank an engine pit 147½ feet deep on the Black Mine at Newton, with a 28-horsepower engine at the bottom working a 333-yard incline. (uncertain) ¹

Recorded claims

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

• In 1822 Bateman and Sherratt sank an engine pit 147½ feet deep on the Black Mine at Newton, with a 28-horsepower engine at the bottom working a 333-yard incline. (uncertain) ¹
• In 1842 the colliery was leased to Samuel Swire and Henry Lees and employed about fifty or sixty men and boys. ^2,1
• The shaft was 160 yards deep, with inclines and a 900-yard horse road beyond the shaft bottom. ^2,1
• A tramway about three-quarters of a mile long linked the colliery to the Newton Wood branch of the Peak Forest Canal. ³
• An explosion on 8 April 1842 killed seventeen men and boys. ^2,4,3
• By the 1847 tithe map the tramway was disused and the colliery was not shown. ³

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Flowery Fields Colliery — Grace's Guide
2. (secondary) Black Mine Explosion - Hyde - 1842 — Northern Mine Research Society
3. (secondary) Flowery Field Tramway & Colliery — Pitt Dixon
4. (primary) Colliery Disaster: Black Mine Pit, Hyde, 8 April 1842 — Durham Mining Museum

Record created: 3 October 2026 · Last researched: 3 October 2026