Griff Colliery

Overview

A cluster of pits on the Newdigate family's Arbury estate at Heath End, worked from the early 18th century until 1960 and served, from 1787, by one of the earliest colliery tramways in England. The estate's land agent, Robert Evans, managed its coal-mining negotiations while raising his family a mile away at Griff House — his daughter Mary Ann grew up to become the novelist George Eliot.

History

Coal has been worked at Heath End, on the Newdigate family's Arbury estate south of Nuneaton, since at least 1716, making Griff one of the older continuously developed collieries in the Warwickshire coalfield. Early workings were served by a succession of horse-drawn tramways built to move coal to water transport: a line from the Collycroft pits to a canal wharf by around 1773, a line from Griff itself to a Griff Arm wharf on the Coventry Canal in 1787, and a double-tracked line from a New Cut wharf to the Griff pits in 1793 — placing Griff's tramway network among the earliest purpose-built colliery railways anywhere in England. The Barbara shaft had already been sunk by 1831 and was deepened in 1831-33; the neighbouring Caroline shaft followed in 1832-33. No.4 pit, later the colliery's showpiece, was sunk in 1850-51, and No.5 followed in 1870, working until its closure around 1900. The largest expansion came in 1894-95 with the sinking of the Clara and Marion shafts; by 1897 Griff Clara pit was in full production and became the first pit in the Warwickshire coalfield to raise 1,000 tons of coal in a single day, and by 1902 the wider Griff undertaking was producing around half a million tons of coal a year. For most of its working life the colliery sat on land managed for the Newdigate family by their land agent, Robert Evans, who oversaw the wider 7,000-acre Arbury estate — surveying land, managing tenant farms, and negotiating with the road-builders and coal-mining businesses operating across it, Griff among them. Evans moved his family to Griff House, about a mile from the colliery, in early 1820, when his daughter Mary Ann was only a few months old; she grew up there until the age of 21 and, writing later as George Eliot, drew directly on her childhood memories of 'the coal-mining, the building of roads and railways and the cutting of canals to take the coal from the mines' in her fiction. The colliery itself was placed on a formal footing in 1882, when the Griff Colliery Company Ltd was incorporated on 12 September to take over direct family control of the workings; it operated the pits until nationalisation brought the National Coal Board in as owner in 1947. The Griff Colliery Company itself erected a memorial, still standing today at what is now the Griff and Coton Sports and Miners' Welfare Club, to more than sixty of its own colliers who died serving in the First World War. Clara pit ceased winding coal on 28 May 1955, and the last working shaft, No.4, closed on 22 July 1960 once its reserves were exhausted; the colliery's own railway branch, connected to the Coventry–Nuneaton line near Chilvers Coton, closed the following year.

Geology

Griff worked the Warwickshire coalfield's productive Coal Measures, part of the same Carboniferous sequence exploited across the wider Nuneaton and Bedworth coalfield, its seams reached here by conventional shaft mining rather than drift or opencast working.

Workings

The Griff undertaking grew as a group of separate shafts rather than one continuous mine — Barbara, Caroline, No.4, No.5, Clara and Marion among them — sunk at intervals from the early 19th century through to 1894-95 as earlier workings were exhausted or new reserves identified. Coal was moved to water transport, and later rail, by a sequence of tramways and eventually a standard-gauge branch line connecting the colliery to the main Coventry–Nuneaton railway.

Closure

Griff Clara pit ceased winding coal in May 1955; No.4, the colliery's last working shaft, closed in July 1960 with its reserves worked out, and the colliery's own railway branch closed in 1961.

What remains

The former colliery sites are now occupied by trading estates; original pithead structures survive in places as industrial heritage remnants among the later development, and sections of the old tramway and railway routes remain traceable on the ground, though increasingly obscured by housing. The Griff Colliery Company's First World War memorial to its own dead survives at the Griff and Coton Sports and Miners' Welfare Club, restored with War Memorials Trust support in 2018.

Scattered pithead structures survive within the trading estates that now occupy the colliery sites, alongside traceable sections of the old tramway and railway alignments and the colliery company's war memorial.

Abandoned workings can be dangerous — unstable ground, uncapped shafts, flooding and bad air are common even where a site looks safe from the surface. This entry describes history and general location only; it is not an access guide.

Recorded claims

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

• Coal was worked at Heath End from as early as 1716; the Barbara shaft was sunk before 1831 and deepened 1831-33, Caroline followed in 1832-33, No.4 in 1850-51, No.5 in 1870, and Clara and Marion in 1894-95, reaching full production by 1897. ¹
• Griff was served by a sequence of early colliery tramways: Collycroft pits to a canal wharf by c.1773, Griff to Griff Arm wharf on the Coventry Canal in 1787, and a double-tracked line from New Cut wharf in 1793. ¹
• Griff Clara pit became the first pit in the Warwickshire coalfield to raise 1,000 tons of coal in a day by 1897, and the wider Griff undertaking was producing around half a million tons of coal a year by 1902. ¹
• The Griff Colliery Company Ltd was incorporated on 12 September 1882 to take over the Newdigate family's direct control of the workings, operating until nationalisation in 1947; Clara pit stopped winding coal in May 1955, and No.4, the last working shaft, closed on 22 July 1960, confirmed by the Mining Remediation Authority's own abandonment record. ^1,2
• Robert Evans, land agent for the Newdigate family's Arbury estate (on which Griff Colliery stood) and father of novelist George Eliot, moved his family to nearby Griff House in early 1820; his daughter Mary Ann lived there until the age of 21. ³

Sources

1. (secondary) Griff Collieries — Industrial Railway Society
2. (primary) BGS/Mining Remediation Authority mine plans — Griff No.4 — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority
3. (secondary) Griff House — Wikipedia

Record created: 26 August 2026 · Last researched: 26 August 2026