Gidlow Colliery

Overview

A two-shaft Wigan colliery near Standish, sunk in 1857 by the Kirkless Hall Coal and Iron Company to the Arley Mine at 405 yards, worked by the Wigan Coal and Iron Company until production stopped in 1910, and kept for pumping until about 1933.

History

Gidlow Colliery lay about 600 yards west of the London and North Western main line and a mile south of Boar's Head station, two miles north-north-west of Wigan. The Kirkless Hall Coal and Iron Company sank its two shafts in 1857: No. 1, eleven feet across, and No. 2, twelve feet, down to the Arley Mine at 405 yards. The pit passed to the Wigan Coal and Iron Company on its formation in 1865. One list dates the colliery from 1880.

A twin-cylinder horizontal engine of 200 horsepower wound with flat ropes, in timber headgears, raising double-deck cages that each carried two eight-hundredweight tubs a deck. A beam engine pumped in two lifts, the lower from the Cannel Mine at 183 yards and the upper from a lodge at 92 yards; its first egg-ended boilers were later replaced with Lancashire boilers. The colliery worked the Cannel, the Haigh Yard at 263½ yards and the Arley.

It employed 342 people in 1894 and 243 in 1900, by then raising gas, household, manufacturing and steam coal from the Arley alone. Inspectors attended inquests on a steady run of single deaths, mostly falls of roof and side during repairs. Production ceased in 1910, when the Arley workings of Nos. 1 and 2 pits were abandoned, but the colliery was kept for pumping, with sixteen men in 1915 and thirteen in 1923. It passed to the Wigan Coal Corporation in 1930 and was abandoned about 1933.

Geology

Coal Measures of the Wigan coalfield: the Cannel Mine (183 yards), the Haigh Yard Mine (263½ yards) and the Arley Mine (405 yards).

Workings

Two shafts sunk in 1857, No. 1 eleven feet and No. 2 twelve feet in diameter; a 200 hp twin-cylinder horizontal winding engine with flat ropes, timber headgears and double-deck cages; a beam pumping engine with two bucket lifts.

Closure

Production ceased in 1910; the colliery was kept for pumping and abandoned about 1933.

What remains

Unknown.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

What's uncertain

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

• Gidlow Colliery opened in 1880. (disputed) ²

Recorded claims

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

• Two shafts were sunk at Gidlow in 1857, No. 2 to the Arley Mine at 405 yards. ¹
• Gidlow Colliery opened in 1880. (disputed) ²
• Gidlow was owned by the Kirkless Hall Coal and Iron Company from 1857 to 1865, the Wigan Coal and Iron Company from 1865 to 1930 and the Wigan Coal Corporation from 1930 to 1933. ^1,2
• The colliery employed 342 people in 1894 and 243 in 1900. ²
• Production ceased in 1910 and the colliery was kept for pumping; it was abandoned about 1933. ¹
• The Arley workings of Gidlow Nos. 1 and 2 pits were abandoned in 1910. ³

Sources

1. (secondary) Gidlow Colliery — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (primary) Durham Mining Museum: Gidlow Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) BGS mine plans: Gidlow Nos 1, 2, Arley seam, abandoned 1910 — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority

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