Vobster Breach Colliery

Overview

A Somerset coalfield pit sunk in 1860 to link up with the older Vobster workings, well equipped and short-lived: it was done by 1884. Two banks of coking ovens survive beside the shaft, the only standing examples in England of a form that differs from the common beehive oven.

History

The opening of the Newbury Railway, a branch of the Great Western, about 1857 gave the coal owners around Vobster a way to market and prompted new sinking. Vobster Breach — also called Vobster New Pit — was begun in April 1860 to connect with the workings of Vobster Old Colliery, and holed through to them in May 1861; a second shaft was sunk later. It was one of several pits of the Vobster Coal Company and was joined to the Newbury Railway by a narrow gauge tramway. The mine was well equipped, and by the middle of the 1860s two banks of coking ovens stood on the site. Competition for the existing markets and a downturn in the coking trade in the following decades are thought to have brought economic difficulty, and mining had ceased by 1884, little more than twenty years after the shaft was begun.

Geology

The coal seams of the Nettlebridge valley around Vobster are severely contorted and often stand vertical, so that the pits here worked them by methods closer to Cornish metal mining than to the flat-lying collieries of the north Somerset coalfield. The ground was also prone to firedamp; several explosions are recorded among the Vobster pits.

Workings

Most of the buildings stood around the shaft in the middle of the site, which is now infilled and sits in a levelled terrace revetted in stone, with four stone mounting blocks marking the position of the wooden headgear. The screens stood immediately east of the shaft and survive only as buried foundations; the stone-built winding engine house lies west of it and is believed to have held a single-cylinder horizontal steam engine, with a brick chimney beyond its north-western corner and workshops to the south. The spoil heap covers about two thirds of a hectare at the north end of the site, bounded on its north-west side by a leat that carried water to power pumps at Vobster colliery half a kilometre away; a stone-lined adit portal in the leat's southern bank drained the Vobster Breach workings. The two banks of coking ovens stand in the south-eastern part of the site.

Closure

Increased competition for existing markets and a falling coking trade are the reasons given for the colliery's difficulties; mining had ceased by 1884 and no later working of this pit is recorded.

What remains

The ruins, earthworks and buried remains are a scheduled monument, considered one of the best preserved mid-19th-century steam-powered collieries in England. The site is now very overgrown; of the coking ovens most have collapsed, though about twelve remain intact.

The revetted shaft terrace with its headgear mounting blocks, the ruined winding engine house and its brick chimney, workshop foundations, the spoil heap, the leat and its adit portal, and two banks of coking ovens.

Redevelopment

None. The site is scrub and woodland.

Nearby mines

• Whatley Quarry — 3.5 km E
• Torr Works — 4.3 km S
• New Rock Colliery — 5.1 km W
• Wellsways Colliery — 5.1 km NW
• Old Pit Radstock — 6.0 km N

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

Recorded claims

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

• The shaft was sunk in April 1860 to connect with the Vobster Old workings and holed through to them in May 1861. ¹
• The opening of the Newbury Railway about 1857 stimulated the development of Vobster Breach, one of several pits owned by the Vobster Coal Company. ²
• Two banks of coking ovens had been built at the site by the mid-1860s; they are the only known standing examples in England of a type differing significantly from the beehive oven. ²
• Mining at Vobster Breach had ceased by 1884. ^2,3
• The site is now very overgrown and most of the coking ovens have collapsed, though about twelve remain intact. ³

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Coal mining — Foundations of the Mendips — British Geological Survey
2. (primary) Vobster Breach colliery, 890m ENE of Tweed Farm, Leigh-on-Mendip (List entry 1014867) — Historic England
3. (primary) Foundations of the Mendips: coal mining — collieries — British Geological Survey
4. (primary) Abandoned mine plan catalogue entry: VOBSTER — British Geological Survey

Record created: 22 September 2026 · Last researched: 22 September 2026