Talk o' th' Hill Colliery

Overview

The North Staffordshire Coal and Iron Company's colliery at Talke, near Kidsgrove, working the Banbury, Bullhurst, Ten Feet and Two Row seams from five pits. Explosions killed 91 in December 1866 and 18 in February 1873; it employed 961 in 1923.

History

Talke and Talke Pits, on the Staffordshire-Cheshire border north-west of Newcastle-under-Lyme, were long mining places. In the 1860s and 1870s Talk o' th' Hill Colliery belonged to the North Staffordshire Coal and Iron Company and worked four seams, the Ten Feet, the Two Row and the Seven and Eight Feet Banbury, the deepest at 350 yards, the lower seams reached by internal shafts. On 13 December 1866 about 150 men and boys were in the Big Banbury pit, two-thirds of them in south workings in a newly found and highly gassy seam of Seven Feet Banbury coal, when gas exploded and killed 91. A second explosion in the Seven Foot Banbury on 18 February 1873 killed all eighteen men working there.

By the 1890s the colliery had five numbered pits, Nos. 2 and 5 employing 770 in 1894, and it raised coking, gas, household, manufacturing and steam coal. Plans of eight seams, from the Ten Feet down to the Eight Feet Banbury, were deposited as abandoned in 1903. Employment reached 961 in 1923 but had fallen to 57 by 1940. Later owners were Talk-o'-th'-Hill Colliery Ltd and, from 1933, the Talke Colliery Company.

Geology

North Staffordshire Coal Measures: the Ten Feet, Two Row, Little Row, Bullhurst and Seven and Eight Feet Banbury seams; the Seven Feet Banbury was highly charged with gas.

Workings

Five numbered pits; the lower seams reached by internal shafts, the Seven Foot Banbury by the Bucksand shaft.

Closure

Plans of the Ten Feet, Rough Seven Feet, Two Row, Stoney Eight Feet, Bullhurst, Seven Feet Banbury, Little Row and Eight Feet Banbury workings were deposited as abandoned in 1903; the colliery still employed 57 in 1940.

What remains

Unknown.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Disasters & major incidents

• Talk o' th' Hill Colliery explosion, 1866
  13 December 1866 · Explosion · 91 fatalities
  On 13 December 1866 an explosion of gas in the Banbury seam at Talk o' th' Hill Colliery, near Kidsgrove, killed 91 men and boys. The jury found that gas had gathered after a train of coal upset in a doorway and was fired by a naked light unlawfully exposed.
• Talk o' th' Hill Colliery explosion, 1873
  18 February 1873 · Explosion · 18 fatalities
  On 18 February 1873 an explosion in the Seven Foot Banbury seam at the North Staffordshire Coal and Iron Company's Talk o' th' Hill Colliery killed all eighteen men and boys working there, six years after the pit's 1866 disaster. Firing a shot was given as the cause of ignition.

Recorded claims

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

• The colliery was the property of the North Staffordshire Coal and Iron Company in 1873. ^1,2
• It worked the Ten Feet, Two Row and Seven and Eight Feet Banbury seams, the Eight Feet Banbury at 350 yards. ^3,2
• An explosion on 13 December 1866 killed 91. ^1,3,4
• An explosion on 18 February 1873 killed 18. ^3,2
• Employment was 961 in 1923 and 57 in 1940. ³
• Plans of eight seams were deposited as abandoned in 1903. ⁵

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Talke o' the Hill Explosion 1866 — Healey Hero
2. (secondary) Talke o' th' Hill Colliery Explosion - Newcastle-under-Lyme - 1873 — Northern Mine Research Society
3. (primary) Talk o' th' Hill Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
4. (secondary) Talke — Wikipedia
5. (primary) Mine plan: Talk-o'th-Hill, eight seams, abandoned 1903 — British Geological Survey

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