Newbury Colliery

Overview

A colliery between Highbury and Upper Vobster, near Coleford, in the south-east of the Somerset coalfield, producing coking coal for the Westbury ironworks from about 1799. With its Mackintosh pit it worked the Garden Course and Warkey seams until financial collapse closed it in August 1927.

History

Newbury Colliery was producing coal by 1799, superseding the nearby Old Newbury Colliery, which had worked the Dungy Drift seam since about 1710. It lies in the southern part of the Radstock syncline, one of the few places where the Lower and Middle Coal Measures of the Somerset coalfield were worked, and its good coking coal went to the Westbury Iron Works. By 1867 the Westbury Iron Works Company owned it, with J. Batey as manager and 53 miners. That year the Mackintosh pit was sunk as an extension, joined to Newbury by an airway: a furnace drew the air down the Newbury shaft and out at Mackintosh.

On 22 October 1869 firedamp exploded as the men were going down, killing eleven, and the jury found three officials guilty of manslaughter. Its shaft, nine feet across and 720 feet deep, served the Garden Course and Warkey Course seams, and employed 199 in 1894 and 331 in 1910. It passed from the Westbury Iron Co. to John Wainwright and Co. by 1908, and later to Newbury Collieries Ltd.

In the 1920s it raised 40,000 to 50,000 tons a year but was in serious difficulty. In September 1921 155 men were dismissed and the other 270 offered a pay cut to keep the pit open; a breakdown of the pumps stopped it from December 1922 to March 1923. By June 1927 it was in the hands of an official receiver with the men on day-to-day contracts. A report found 15 million tons in reserve, but the shaft needed deepening to 586 metres and the money could not be found. The pit closed in August 1927.

Geology

Lower and Middle Coal Measures in the southern part of the Radstock syncline, one of the few places in the Somerset coalfield where they were worked: the Garden Course and Warkey Course seams, with the Dungy Drift worked at Old Newbury.

Workings

A shaft nine feet in diameter and 720 feet deep; the Mackintosh pit, sunk in 1867, connected by an airway and ventilated as one with Newbury, its Garden Course coal brought to Newbury by a narrow-gauge tramway for screening and loading.

Closure

Closed in August 1927 after receivership: a report found 15 million tons of reserves, but the shaft needed deepening to 586 metres and the finance could not be found.

What remains

The site is largely levelled, though some remains can still be seen, among them the Grade II listed winding engine house.

Remains including the line of the tramway, and the winding engine house of about 1860: two storeys of roughly coursed limestone with keyed round-arched openings and a gabled corrugated iron roof, listed Grade II in 1997 as the best surviving engine house of the Mendip coalfields.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Disasters & major incidents

• Newbury Colliery explosion, 1869
  22 October 1869 · Explosion · 11 fatalities
  On 22 October 1869, as the men were going down, firedamp exploded on the Mackintosh side of the Westbury Iron Company's Newbury Colliery at Coleford in the Somerset coalfield. Eleven died, and the jury found three officials guilty of manslaughter.

What's uncertain

Points where sources disagree or the record could not be settled; both accounts are kept. All open questions in the archive.

• The colliery opened in 1798. (disputed) ³

Recorded claims

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

• Newbury Colliery was producing coal in 1799, superseding Old Newbury, which had worked the Dungy Drift since about 1710. ^1,2
• The colliery opened in 1798. (disputed) ³
• The Lower and Middle Coal Measures were worked mainly at the Newbury and Vobster collieries. ¹
• The Mackintosh pit was sunk in 1867 as an extension to Newbury, connected to it by an airway. ²
• The shaft was 9 feet in diameter and 720 feet deep. ¹
• The colliery employed 199 in 1894 and 331 in 1910, working the Garden Course and Warkey Course seams. ³
• The colliery closed in August 1927 after receivership, the shaft needing deepening to 586 m without the finance to do it. ^2,3
• An explosion on 22 October 1869 killed eleven. ^4,3
• Plans of the Newbury and Mackintosh workings were deposited as abandoned in 1927. ⁵
• The colliery's winding engine house, of about 1860 and associated with the expansion when the Mackintosh shaft opened in 1867, was listed Grade II in 1997 as the best surviving engine house of the Mendip coalfields. ⁶

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Somerset Coalfield — Wikipedia
2. (primary) Coal mining — Foundations of the Mendips — British Geological Survey
3. (primary) Newbury Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
4. (secondary) Newbury Colliery Explosion - Westbury - 1869 — Northern Mine Research Society
5. (primary) Newbury and Mackintosh / Luckington: abandonment plan, 1927 — BGS / Mining Remediation Authority
6. (secondary) Winding Engine House, Newbury Colliery, Coleford (list entry 1259300) — Historic England

Record created: 3 October 2026 · Last researched: 3 October 2026