Maypole Colliery

Overview

Wigan's worst mining disaster happened here — an explosion that killed 76 men and whose last victim was not brought to the surface until nine years afterwards.

History

Maypole Colliery was sunk at Abram, just south-west of Wigan, opening in 1895 and reaching full production by 1898 under the Moss Hall Coal Company, which also owned several other collieries in the district. It became, by 1908, Wigan's worst mining disaster site when an explosion in the Four Feet seam killed 76 men on the night shift of 18 August that year. The colliery reopened afterwards and continued working into the 1930s.

Geology

Maypole worked the Lancashire Coalfield's Four Feet seam, part of the Wigan district's Carboniferous coal measures.

Workings

Underground haulage roadways and coal faces served by a headgear and winding plant at the surface, badly damaged in the 1908 explosion along with the colliery's fan house, the structure responsible for ventilating the whole mine.

Closure

Maypole closed in the 1930s as the Lancashire coalfield around Wigan contracted.

What remains

The colliery site has been built over by housing. A section of the original pithead winding gear survives as a preserved feature, and a memorial to the 1908 disaster stands in the churchyard of St John the Evangelist, Abram, rededicated on the centenary of the disaster in 2008.

Preserved remnants of the pithead winding gear, and the 1908 disaster memorial in Abram churchyard.

Redevelopment

Housing now covers the former colliery site.

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.

Disasters & major incidents

• Maypole Colliery explosion, 1908
  18 August 1908 · Explosion · 76 fatalities
  At ten past five in the evening of 18 August 1908, an explosion of firedamp and coal dust tore through the Four Feet seam at Maypole Colliery, Abram, killing 76 men — Wigan's worst mining disaster. The blast wrecked the pithead winding gear and the fan house that ventilated the whole mine, and it took until 1917, nine years later, to recover the last body.

Recorded claims

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

• Maypole Colliery was sunk at Abram, opening in 1895 and reaching full production by 1898 under the Moss Hall Coal Company. ¹
• The colliery continued working after the 1908 disaster and closed in the 1930s. ¹
• The site has been built over by housing; a section of the original pithead winding gear is preserved, and a memorial to the 1908 disaster stands in Abram churchyard. ²

Photographs & further reading

This page doesn't try to reproduce everything — these are the best original sources found for this mine.

Images

Sources

1. (primary) Maypole Colliery — Northern Mine Research Society — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (secondary) Maypole Colliery disaster — Wikipedia

Record created: 24 August 2026 · Last researched: 24 August 2026