Ince Hall Arley Pit

Overview

The Ince Hall Coal and Cannel Company's Arley Pit at Ince, a mile east of Wigan by the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which worked the notoriously fiery Arley seam at 414 yards and exploded twice within a year: 58 died in March 1853 and 89 in February 1854.

History

The Arley Pit was one of a cluster of eight pits within about two miles belonging to the Ince Hall Coal and Cannel Company, whose general manager was James Darlington; by 1853 it had been worked for about three years. Its shafts, 11 ft 4 in across, reached the Arley seam at 414 yards, a seam about four feet thick and one of the most fiery in Lancashire, with an upper seam worked from mouthings in the shaft. It was ventilated by a furnace near the upcast. The seam rose steeply to the shaft, so the return air had to travel downhill for seventy yards, which made the ventilation delicate. Explosions in March 1853 and February 1854 killed well over a hundred between them (see Disasters, below).

Geology

Lancashire Coal Measures: the Arley seam (about 4 ft), under black bass and slaty metal with gas-bearing rock above, and an upper seam worked from the shaft.

Workings

Two shafts 11 ft 4 in in diameter to the Arley at 414 yards, a ventilating furnace west of the upcast, and districts under deputies.

Closure

Unknown.

What remains

Unknown.

Unknown.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Disasters & major incidents

• Ince Hall Arley Pit explosion, 1853
  1853 · Explosion · 50 fatalities
  In March 1853 gas exploded at the bottom of the upcast shaft of the Ince Hall Coal and Cannel Company's Arley Pit at Wigan, after the ventilating furnace had been damped down for repairs and relit. About fifty men and boys were killed.
• Ince Hall Arley Pit explosion, 1854
  1854 · Explosion · 89 fatalities
  At half-past two on Saturday 18 February 1854, eleven months after its first disaster, the Arley Pit of the Ince Hall Coal and Cannel Company at Wigan exploded again during a storm, killing 89. Thirty-seven of the dead were burnt; the rest were suffocated by afterdamp.

Recorded claims

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

• The Arley mine at 414 yards belonged to the Ince Hall Coal and Cannel Company and was one of a cluster of eight pits within two miles, about a mile east of Wigan near the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. ^1,2
• The Arley seam was one of the most notorious and fiery in Lancashire, averaging four feet thick; the return air travelled downhill for seventy yards. ²
• The shafts were eleven feet four inches in diameter; the furnace, six feet wide and nine long, stood twenty-five yards west of the upcast, and an upper seam was worked from mouthings in the same shafts. ²

Sources

1. (secondary) Ince Hall Colliery Explosion - Wigan - 1853 — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (secondary) Ince Hall Colliery Explosion - Wigan - 1854 — Northern Mine Research Society
3. (secondary) Wigan, Colliery Accident, 1853 - What the Papers Said — Shropshire Caving & Mining Club

Record created: 21 September 2026 · Last researched: 21 September 2026