Winding Rope

The rope that raises and lowers the cage, skip or kibble in a shaft, running from the winding drum over the headgear pulleys and capped to the suspension gear of what it carries.

Historical usage

Before wire there were hemp ropes and chains, and chains had a record of failure: a flaw in one link broke the whole. Modern wire rope was invented by the German mining engineer Wilhelm Albert between 1831 and 1834 for the mines of the Harz at Clausthal, from three strands of four wires, and was taken up quickly because it proved stronger than hemp or chain; Robert Stirling Newall improved the process in 1840. The 1849 glossary of the Northumberland and Durham coal trade already knew the flat rope, which balanced itself after a fashion as the ascending rope grew its coil on the drum and the descending one shed it, and the balance rope or counterbalance staple that did the same for round ropes. The Cannock Chase accident of 15 May 1868 shows what a rope could become. The pit had no depth indicator, so the engineman had wrapped eighteen inches of hemp round the flat wire rope as a token to tell him when the skip was at the inset. The hemp set as hard as a bolster, flexed the rope to and fro over a five-foot pulley and a five-foot drum, and broke its wires one by one where no one could see them: when it parted with eight men and boys aboard, only 25 or 26 wires, about a seventh of the rope, were whole. Six died. The special rules required the rope to be examined periodically, which the wrapping had made impossible, and the manager was fined ten shillings for having no indicator. At Pleasley in Derbyshire the first ropes of 1877 were stranded, of best plough steel; the stranded ropes twisted, the cages touched as they passed, and after various types were tried the expensive locked-coil rope cured it. By the time the south shaft was deepened in 1921 locked coil was the standard, and the colliery's last ropes were locked coil of 48 millimetres against the inch-and-five-eighths of the 1890s. Capping went the same way, from the wedge capel of the 1870s to white metal.

How it worked

A winding rope is either stranded, with wires laid into strands and the strands laid round a core, or locked coil, a spiral single-strand rope whose outer wires are shaped to lock together and give a smooth surface that resists twist and wear. Its end is capped: the wires are opened out and set in molten white metal or resin in a tapered socket, or gripped in a wedge capel, and the socket is pinned to the detaching hook above the cage. The rope passes from the drum of the winding engine over the pulley in the headgear and down the shaft; two ropes on one drum wind one cage up as the other comes down, and a balance rope hung beneath the cages, of half-locked-coil construction for its smoothness, evens the load as the lengths change. Cappings are remade at fixed intervals because they are the safety-critical joint, the piece cut off at a recapping is examined for wear and corrosion, and the rope itself has a statutory life and a minimum factor of safety, extended only by a thorough examination; the magnetic test that finds broken inner wires without stripping the rope is the modern check on a mine hoist.

Why it was used

Everything that enters or leaves a deep mine hangs on it. A rope strong enough to carry a loaded cage from a thousand feet, smooth enough not to spin it in the shaft and inspected often enough to be trusted is the condition on which deep shaft mining exists at all.

Risks & limitations

A rope fails from inside. Wires break one at a time at the capping, at a kink or where it bends over a pulley, and the rope looks whole until it is not; the Cannock rope had lost six-sevenths of its wires under a wrapping of hemp. Stranded ropes twist under load and can turn a cage in the shaft; locked coil ropes do not, but they are dear and must be repaired and capped by competent hands. The detaching hook and the overwind gear exist because the rope will one day wind the cage into the pulleys, and the king hook or Ormerod hook was designed to let go of it when it does.

Regional variation

Winding rope in the coalfields, where the word for the fitting at its end is the capel; in Cornwall the rope of the whim or the skip road. The flat rope was a Midland and North Country favourite of the mid 19th century. The manufacturers' names, locked coil, flattened strand and plough steel, are the same everywhere.

Related terminology

Cage, Capstan, Detaching Hook, Endless Rope Haulage, Headgear, Inset, Kibble, King Hook, Koepe Winding, Man-riding, Overwind, Skip-winding, Winding Engine

Mines associated with this term

5 examples chosen from 32 linked records — the term page is not an index.

• Frances Colliery — Fife (well documented example)
  Named in this record’s workings: “…around the pit's existing 1878 headgear so that the pulleys and winding ropes could be transferred across in a single Sunday shutdown, losing only…”
• Glyn Pits, Pontypool — Torfaen (well documented example)
  Named twice in this record, first in the summary: “…by the Neath Abbey Ironworks, and a vertical winding engine with flat-rope reels in place by 1865. An explosion and fire in 1890 killed five…”
• Moorgreen Colliery — Nottinghamshire (well documented example)
  Named in this record’s history: “…haulage system. In 1880 a fire destroyed the headstock and winding rope of the upcast shaft and halted production for a time. The pit…”
• Wollaton Colliery — Nottinghamshire (well documented example)
  Named in this record’s workings: “…day, winding two sixteen-hundredweight tubs on a single-deck cage. Winding ropes were inch-and-a-quarter crucible steel and the cages ran on…”
• Allanshaw Colliery — South Lanarkshire (well documented example)
  Named in this record’s history: “…shaft at 70 fathoms when the spring dog that held the kettle to the winding rope snapped, and the kettle, filled with stones and weighing nearly…”

Disasters associated with this term

5 examples chosen from 42 linked records, most direct relationship first.

• Aldwarke Main Colliery shaft accident, 1904 (contextual relationship)
  Named 3 times in this record, first in the summary: “At 5.20 a.m. on 23 February 1904 the winding rope broke as eight men were being lowered down the No. 2 Parkgate shaft…”
• Bankpark Colliery cage accident, 1913 (contextual relationship)
  Named in this record’s summary: “…colliery at Tranent were riding up the upcast shaft when the winding rope broke and the cage fell 46 fathoms to the sump, killing both. The…”
• Bickershaw Colliery shaft accident, 1932 (contextual relationship)
  Named in this record’s narrative: “…into the headgear, becoming suspended in the 'bell platform' as its winding rope detached and crashed through the engine house roof.”
• Burnhope Colliery winding rope break, 1893 (contextual relationship)
  Named twice in this record, first in the summary: “On the night of 23 November 1893 the winding rope broke as the last cage of shifters was being lowered down the Fell…”
• Cannock Chase Colliery shaft accident, 1868 (contextual relationship)
  Named twice in this record, first in the summary: “On the morning of 15 May 1868 the flat wire winding rope at No. 4 Pit of the Cannock Chase Colliery snapped as eight men and…”

Sources

1. (primary) Guidance on the selection, installation, maintenance and replacement of wire ropes in mine shafts — Health and Safety Executive
2. (primary) Mining Terms (S): glossary of the Northumberland and Durham coal trade, 1849 — Durham Mining Museum
3. (secondary) Cannock Chase Colliery Shaft Accident - Cannock - 1868 — Northern Mine Research Society
4. (secondary) Pit Terminology — Healey Hero
5. (secondary) Pleasley Colliery: ropes, capping and detaching hooks — Friends of Pleasley Pit
6. (secondary) Wire rope — Wikipedia

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