Open questions: Greater Manchester

Where sources disagree, MineArchive keeps both accounts rather than picking one; where a fact could not be settled, the record says so. 44 such claims on 34 records. All regions.

Ashton's Field Colliery

• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Ashtons Field' (catalogue SFE250, Surface, undated in the catalogue); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain)

Astley Deep Pit

• The pit was started around 1845. (disputed)

Bedford Colliery

• The account of the disaster states that the colliery was 'sunk in 1884', which conflicts with the 1874 start and 1876 first coal given in the fuller history of the colliery; the two accounts disagree. (disputed)

Bent Grange Colliery

• Nineteen lost their lives in the explosion of 9 October 1850. (disputed)

Blackleyhurst Colliery

• The colliery opened in 1855. (disputed)

Blackrod Colliery

• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Blackrod' (catalogue 12606, Ravine Tops, Ravine Bottoms, dated 1939); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain)

Brackley Colliery

• The Bridgewater Trustees developed Brackley Colliery in 1878 according to Engole's history of the Bridgewater collieries, and in 1879 according to the Northern Mine Research Society and Grace's Guide; the 1879 date also attaches to the installation of the No. 1 winding engine and headgear. (disputed)

Chanters Colliery

• Chanters was commenced on a very old site; its 'Gold Pit', an engine pit, is said to have ceased before 1800 and to be named from a find of Charles I gold coins and their stamping plates. (uncertain)

Cleworth Hall Colliery

• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Cleworth Hall' (catalogue NW23, Brassey, dated 1951); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain)

Clifton Hall Colliery

• On the traditional account the men struck over underground safety in 1869, Andrew Knowles and Sons refused to concede, and after some weeks miners were brought in from the Black Country and given the houses the strikers had lived in — 'Bilston scabs', after whom the district was known for many years as Little Bilston. (disputed)
• Cutler's 2018 reading of the newspapers puts the dispute earlier and differently: discontent in 1866 over the banning of a trade union, and the Wigan Observer reporting locked-out miners evicted that year and replaced by two hundred men brought from Cornwall and three hundred from Staffordshire, with about twice as many again arriving at their own expense. By 1885 every man killed in the explosion had a local address. (disputed)
• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Clifton Hall' (catalogue NW1024, Crombouke, undated in the catalogue); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain)

Combermere Colliery

• The Tyldesley Coal Company sank Combermere Colliery at Shakerley in 1867, with two shafts reaching the Rams mine at 315 feet and the Black and White mine at 600 feet. (disputed)
• Combermere Colliery in Shakerley opened in 1878 and lasted until 1893. (disputed)

Fairbottom Colliery

• The engine's origin is unclear. It may have been installed first at Norbury Coal Works, some nine miles to the west, from where the Manchester Mercury of 9 October 1764 carried an advertisement for a fire engine for sale whose cylinder dimensions matched the Fairbottom engine. (uncertain)

Flowery Field Colliery

• In 1822 Bateman and Sherratt sank an engine pit 147½ feet deep on the Black Mine at Newton, with a 28-horsepower engine at the bottom working a 333-yard incline. (uncertain)

Foggs Colliery

• The shaft reached the Arley mine at 380 yards, worked out by 1838. (disputed)
• The lowest workings, the Cannel, were at 380 yards and had not been worked for some time in 1877. (disputed)
• Foggs closed in May 1912. (disputed)
• Foggs was abandoned on 24 November 1913. (disputed)

Garswood Hall Colliery

• The inquiry report gives 27 deaths in the explosion of 12 November 1932; the Secretary for Mines told the Commons two days later that 25 had died. (disputed)

Gin Pit Colliery

• Sources disagree on the closure date, giving either 1955 or 1958; the buildings were subsequently used by William Hare as a foundry and steel-fabrication plant. (disputed)
• Gin Pit ceased production in 1958. (disputed)
• Gin Pit closed in 1955. (disputed)

Hewlett Colliery

• Hewlett Colliery opened in 1880 and closed in December 1930. (disputed)

Heys Colliery

• The colliery opened in 1855 and closed in 1869. (disputed)

High Brooks Colliery

• In 1866 the two pits were the property of Messrs Turner and Evans. (disputed)

Hyde Colliery

• The colliery manager's own report of about the same date gives the downcast and winding shaft as 274 yards deep and the upcast as 220 yards. (disputed)

Ince Hall Deep Pit

• The Deep Pit was 1,242 feet deep. (uncertain)

Ince Moss Colliery

• The inspector's report on DMM gives 70 lives lost (68 bodies left below); NMRS says 60 died in the first explosion and five in the second; a later memorial account and the Geograph caption give 75. (disputed)

Kersley Colliery

• The colliery was the property of Samuel Sowcroft and Sons and sometimes known as 'Sowcrofts'. (disputed)

Lakes Pit, Dukinfield

• The explosion that killed 38 was on 4 June 1867. (disputed)

Low Hall Colliery

• NMRS says the explosion caused 27 deaths, but quotes the verdict as 'John Ormsher and the twenty-seven others'. (disputed)

Nook Colliery

• Accounts differ on the colliery's standing. The company history says Nook became the largest colliery on the Manchester Coalfield; the colliery list says it became the second largest. (disputed)

Norbury Colliery

• The colliery is listed as working from 1855 to 1890. (uncertain)

Peel Hall Colliery

• Peel Hall Colliery was formally abandoned in December 1931. (disputed)

Pemberton Colliery

• The Bye Pit was sunk about 1820. (disputed)
• Henry Blundell sank the Bye Pit in 1815. (disputed)

Shakerley Colliery

• In 1869 Ramsden, in financial difficulty, disappeared on the way to the bank at Bolton; his wife kept the collieries working until he returned on foot from Liverpool weeks later. (uncertain)

Stonehill Colliery

• The Liverpool Journal of 27 January 1877 names the owners as Messrs Roscow and Ward; later mining-history summaries give the firm as Roscoe and Lord, and record that the colliery was previously known as the Dow Mine. (disputed)
• The colliery was not considered a gassy pit and naked lights were used; the fire is believed to have started when a lad ignited the tarred brattice cloth with his lamp, the flames spreading to the wooden props and then to the coal. (uncertain)

Taylor Colliery

• Its Arley and Yard workings were planned as abandoned in 1921. (uncertain)

Tonge Colliery

• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Tonge' (catalogue NW263, Bent New (Top Neddy) Neddy, dated 1857); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain)

Unity Brook Colliery

• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Unity Brook' (catalogue 1261, Doe, Five Quarter, Trencherbone, Cannel, dated 1881); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain)