Leeswood Main Colliery

Overview

The Leeswood pit known as the Flue Pit, worked for three and a half years by Craig, Taylor and Craig before water from its own flooded old workings broke in on 15 December 1864 and drowned eight, one of them a boy of ten; a ninth man died in the recovery. The coroner's jury returned manslaughter against the whole firm, and the assizes threw the case out.

History

Leeswood Main was one of four collieries developed at Leeswood from the early nineteenth century, and the pit at the centre of this record was known as the Flue Pit. It stood on what is now farmland by the football pitch behind Leeswood Community Centre, its tramway surviving as a gully running down to the valley; the shaft is believed to have been used later as an airshaft to the Pontblyddyn Level. The company was the Leeswood Main Colliery Co., owned by William Craig, Henry Taylor and William Wright Craig, and the ground was probably leased from Edward Oakley of the Coed Talon mines and ironworks. The pit was run on the chartermaster system, under which a gang master contracted with the owner to raise coal at a rate per ton and paid the men himself, often in goods rather than cash; the system was abolished in 1872. Leeswood Main's chartermasters were Edward Jones, William Williams, William Jones and John Pierce. Ishmael Jones was the manager underground. It had been working three and a half years when, on the morning of 15 December 1864, water broke into the south side workings and drowned eight (see Disasters, below). The pit does not appear in the 1896 list; a list of 1869 gives Leeswood Main under the Leeswood Main Coal and Cannel Co., and the official return of 1880 gives 'Leaswood Main, Wrexham, New Leaswood Main Colliery Co., Limited'.

Geology

The pit worked coal and cannel in the Flintshire Coal Measures. The part of the coalfield being worked lay between two large distinct faults running north to south, the west side of it separating these workings from those of the Julia Pit. The seam undulated without any regular or well-defined dip except to the south, where the accident happened; the mine there was nine feet thick, and a small fault crossing it threw the ground up about seven feet. It was the position of that fault, wrongly drawn on the only plan the company had, that let the water through.

Geological setting: Faults and Fractures (well documented example), Sedimentary Beds and Seams (well documented example)

Workings

Coal was taken by shaft, and by 1864 the men were working in the broken — pulling out the pillars that had been left to hold the roof. Water had been accumulating in the old south workings since before 1863 and was being wound to the surface in tubs. The scheme drawn up by an earlier manager was to drive two roadways to the property boundary to reach the deep coal beneath the flooded ground, work it out, and then tap the old water down into the abandoned deep section. The inundation came before that was finished.

Closure

The colliery was still returned in 1880 under the New Leaswood Main Colliery Co. Ltd and is absent from the 1896 list. No closure date has been established.

What remains

The Flue Pit site is farmland near the football pitches behind Leeswood Community Centre; the tramway that later served the Phoenix Collieries survives as a gully leading down to the valley. Owen Jones, the ten-year-old killed in 1864, is buried at Pontblyddyn churchyard, and his gravestone is the reason many people locally know of the disaster at all.

The tramway gully below the site; no colliery structure is identified in the sources read.

Redevelopment

Farmland and playing fields.

Related mines

• Leeswood Green Colliery — Adjacent Leeswood workings separated by the western of the two faults that bound this ground, with the Julia Pit between them: it was worked by the Leeswood Green Colliery Co. until August 1862 and by the Leeswood Cannel and Gas Coal Co. after that, and the latter company subscribed to the relief fund after the Flue Pit disaster.

Nearby mines

• Leeswood Green Colliery — 0.4 km S
• Brymbo Colliery — 7.8 km S, Wrexham
• Llay Main Colliery — 8.3 km SE, Wrexham
• Minera Lead Mines — 8.5 km SE, Wrexham
• Brynmally Colliery — 9.4 km SE, Wrexham

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

Disasters & major incidents

• Leeswood Main (Flue Pit) Inundation, 1864
  15 December 1864 · Flooding / Inundation · 9 fatalities
  On the morning of 15 December 1864 water from the pit's own flooded old workings broke into the south side of the Flue Pit at Leeswood and drowned eight, among them Owen Jones, a boy of ten years and one month. A chartermaster, John Pierce, was killed during the recovery. The coroner's jury returned manslaughter against all three owners; the grand jury at the Flintshire Assizes found no bill, and the manager was fined five pounds for failing to bore ahead.

Recorded claims

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

• The Flue Pit was part of the Leeswood Main Colliery Co., owned by William Craig, Henry Taylor and William Wright Craig, and was run on the chartermaster system with Ishmael Jones as manager underground. ¹
• A list of 1869 gives Leeswood Main under the Leeswood Main Coal and Cannel Co.; the 1880 return gives 'Leaswood Main, Wrexham, New Leaswood Main Colliery Co., Limited'; the colliery is not in the 1896 list. ^2,3
• The Flue Pit stood on what is now farmland near the football pitch behind Leeswood Community Centre, its tramway surviving as a gully to the valley; the shaft is believed to have been used later as an airshaft to the Pontblyddyn Level. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) The 'Flue Pit' Mine Disaster, Leeswood, 15th December 1864, by C. Astbury — Leeswood Community
2. (secondary) List of coal mines UK 1880 — Coalmining History Resource Centre
3. (secondary) Leeswood Collieries — Welsh Coal Mines

Record created: 8 September 2026 · Last researched: 8 September 2026