Pewfall Colliery

Overview

A colliery on Liverpool Road, Ashton-in-Makerfield, first sunk by Eccles and Stock around 1830 and bought in 1859 by Richard Evans and Company, which worked it with up to four shafts and an output of 130,000 tons a year until it was worked out in September 1911.

History

Pewfall lay on the north side of Liverpool Road, Ashton-in-Makerfield, beside a tramroad the Gerard family had laid around 1760 to carry Garswood coal down to the canal basin at Blackbrook. The first documented pits there were sunk by the partnership of Eccles and Stock in about 1830, and in 1842 their Ashton Colliery, which presumably included Pewfall, employed 89 adults, 52 young people and 22 boys aged twelve or under. Samuel Clough, the last surviving partner, ran it; his manager James Frost was killed in April 1857 when a descending cage struck him as he leaned over the barrier at the pit mouth. In 1859 Richard Evans and Company bought the colliery from Clough's executors and sank new pits. In March 1867 two drawers died when firedamp was fired by a shot in the Little Delf mine (see Disasters, below). In November 1868 fire swept the pit brow, its headgear and two to three hundred tons of slack, doing £2,500 of uninsured damage, and in 1869 water broke in from the cuttings for the Lancashire Union Railway, putting three hundred men out of work. In 1892 No. 1 shaft held a Cornish beam pumping engine with a 61-inch cylinder, and No. 2, the winding and downcast shaft, was 112 yards deep and worked the Wigan Four and Five Feet coals on the bord and pillar system. By 1894 the colliery employed about 220 people and had four shafts, though only two were working by the end of the century; at its peak it raised 130,000 tons a year. It closed in September 1911, said by a mining expert to be quite worked out, and its chimney came down in August 1921.

Geology

Coal Measures of the South Lancashire Coalfield: the Wigan Four, Five and Six Feet, Nine Feet, Sir John, Rushy Park, Main Delf and Little Delf mines.

Workings

Up to four shafts: No. 1 a pumping shaft with a Cornish beam engine draining the Wigan Four and Five Feet in two 56-yard lifts; No. 2 a winding and downcast shaft 9 feet across and 112 yards deep (1892); bord and pillar working; a tramroad and later railway connections to the canal and to the Haydock Colliery railway.

Closure

Closed in September 1911, worked out; the government lists last show it in 1910.

What remains

Shaft openings, a footpath on the line of the tramroad, a brick pillar on the north side of Liverpool Road and a single-storey building believed to have been the wages office survive.

Shaft sites, the tramroad line, a pillar and a former office building.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Disasters & major incidents

• Pewfall Colliery explosion, 1867
  9 March 1867 · Explosion · 2 fatalities
  Firedamp brushed out of a working place before a shot was fired in the Little Delf mine at Pewfall Colliery, near Ashton-in-Makerfield, was fired by the shot on 9 March 1867, fatally injuring two young drawers who were sheltering nearby.
• Pewfall Colliery roof fall, 1871
  29 July 1871 · Collapse / Roof Fall · 2 fatalities
  Two colliers named Twist were killed together by a fall of roof at Richard Evans and Company's Pewfall Colliery, near Ashton-in-Makerfield, on 29 July 1871.
• Pewfall Colliery roof fall, 1888
  7 July 1888 · Collapse / Roof Fall · 2 fatalities
  A fireman and a dataller retimbering an old crushed road in No. 3 Pit at Pewfall Colliery, Haydock, were buried on 7 July 1888 when the side came over as they took out an old bar.

Culture

• Children of Darkness: A Romance of Mining Life (Literature)
  The novel opens on the lane from Kingsmoss to Pewfall Colliery, the 'Pewfaw' of its collier characters, and is set in and around the real pit south-west of Ashton-in-Makerfield where its author's own district lay.

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 was sunk about 1860 by Samuel Clough, who sold it about that time to Richard Evans and Company. (disputed) ²
• The government lists give the colliery's closure as 1910. (disputed) ³

Recorded claims

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

• The first documented pits at Pewfall were sunk by the Eccles and Stock partnership in about 1830. ¹
• Richard Evans and Company bought Pewfall Colliery from the executors of Samuel Clough in 1859. ¹
• The colliery was sunk about 1860 by Samuel Clough, who sold it about that time to Richard Evans and Company. (disputed) ²
• In 1894 the colliery employed about 220 people and had four shafts; at its peak it raised 130,000 tons a year. ^3,2
• A fire at the pit brow in November 1868 destroyed the headgear and did about £2,500 of uninsured damage. ²
• In 1869 water broke into the colliery from the excavations for the Lancashire Union Railway, putting three hundred men out of work. ²
• Pewfall Colliery closed in September 1911. ^2,1
• The government lists give the colliery's closure as 1910. (disputed) ³

Sources

1. (observational) The Makerfield Rambler: photographs tagged Pewfall — Flickr (The Makerfield Rambler)
2. (secondary) Pewfall Colliery (accidents and incidents) — Northern Mine Research Society
3. (primary) Durham Mining Museum: Pewfall Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
4. (primary) BGS mine plans: Pewfall, Wigan Five Feet to Little Delf seams, abandoned 1911 — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority

Record created: 16 October 2026 · Last researched: 16 October 2026