Glascote Colliery

Overview

A Tamworth colliery and clay works recorded from 1850, worked by the Glascote Colliery Company for coal, ironstone and fireclay until its coal seams were abandoned in 1943.

History

Glascote Colliery lay at Glascote, about a mile and a half north-east of Tamworth, and worked coal and fireclay together. The Birmingham Journal of 2 November 1850 carried a notice of the Glascote Colliery and Clay Works, Tamworth, and deaths there are recorded from the same year, when William Sanders was killed by a stone falling in the shaft. The owners were the Glascote Colliery Company, run in its earlier years by H. O. Firmstone and later a limited company.

In 1894 the colliery employed 164 men, 129 of them underground, working the Seven Feet and Deep seams for household and steam coal. Employment rose to 235 in 1905 and was 240 in 1940. By 1910 the Bench, Double and Ryder seams were also worked, and fireclay was being raised by 1915. The Ryder coal and ironstone workings were abandoned in late 1914. Nineteen deaths are recorded between 1850 and 1907, among them John Pope, a boy killed by an explosion of firedamp in 1854, and George Moore, a loader fatally injured by a fall of roof while helping a stallman set a prop in the Double coal in 1907.

Abandonment plans of the Smithy, Ryder, Ironstone, Deep, Seven Feet and Bench seams are dated 12 August 1943. Fireclay had been mined at Glascote since at least the 1870s, with plans of abandoned fireclay workings dated from 1876 to 1950.

Geology

The colliery worked the Seven Feet and Deep seams, later also the Bench, Double, Ryder and Smithy coals, with ironstone and fireclay from the same measures.

Workings

Shaft workings in several coal seams, with ironstone and fireclay; 129 of the 164 men employed in 1894 worked underground.

Closure

The Ryder coal and ironstone workings were abandoned in late 1914 and the remaining coal seams on 12 August 1943; a plan of abandoned fireclay workings is dated 1950.

What remains

The overgrown brick abutment of the bridge that carried the Amington and Glascote Colliery Railway over the Coventry Canal.

Related mines

• Amington Colliery — Tamworth collieries of the Glascote Colliery Company, joined by the Amington and Glascote Colliery Railway.

Recorded claims

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

• A notice of the Glascote Colliery and Clay Works, Tamworth, appeared in the Birmingham Journal on 2 November 1850. ¹
• Glascote Colliery was owned by the Glascote Colliery Co. (H. O. Firmstone), later the Glascote Colliery Co., Ltd. ^2,3
• In 1894 Glascote employed 164 men, 129 underground, working the Seven Feet and Deep seams. ²
• George Moore, a loader of 33, was fatally injured by a fall of roof at Glascote in July 1907 while helping set a prop. ^2,3
• William Sandall, a dataller of 70, was killed by a fall of coal at Glascote in October 1906. ^2,4
• The Ryder coal and ironstone workings at Glascote were abandoned in late 1914. ^2,5
• Abandonment plans of the Glascote Smithy, Ryder, Ironstone, Deep, Seven Feet and Bench seams are dated 12 August 1943. ⁶
• Plans of abandoned fireclay workings at Glascote are dated from 1876 to 1950. ^7,8

Sources

1. (secondary) Glascot (brickmarks gallery, with the Birmingham Journal notice of 2 November 1850) — Scotland's Brick and Tile Manufacturing Industry
2. (primary) Glascote Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
3. (secondary) NMRS deaths and accidents record: George Moore, Glascote, 1907 — Northern Mine Research Society
4. (secondary) NMRS deaths and accidents record: William Sandall, Glascote, 1906 — Northern Mine Research Society
5. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan 21941976: Glascote, Ryder (believed Smithy) & Ironstone, abandoned 9 October 1914 — British Geological Survey
6. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan 21935001: Glascote, Smithy, Ryder, Ironstone, Deep, Seven Feet, Bench, abandoned 12 August 1943 — British Geological Survey
7. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan 21871191: Glascote, Fireclay, abandoned 30 June 1950 — British Geological Survey
8. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan 21863728: Glascote, Fireclay Black White, abandoned 1876 — British Geological Survey

Record created: 19 October 2026 · Last researched: 20 October 2026