Set out below is a message to the list from October last year
subsequent to the message I have manage to get sight of a section of the
Plate Rail which I believe is the type of rail commonly used about
1820-1840.
Whilst investigating further it appears that there is an anomaly, When
compared with a section from underground at Old Grove and it matches this
smaller gauge precisely. The Children's Evidence to the Commissioners'
suggested Cromhall had no underground haulage other than human by sled but
could this plate rail suggest otherwise. The absence of any evidence of an
embankment for a surface tramway also could suggest that haulage to the main
roadway may have been by sled but thence by tubs to the pumping shaft and
raised by horse gin there. The Middle Pit could have then been the
man-riding shaft and ventilation.
Lots of questions raised by one small chunk of metal!! Any comments
-----Original Message-----
From: DAVID HARDWICK <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: Ian GREENFIELD <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 22 October 1999 12:04
Subject: Re:About Coalmines (& railroads)
>Something relevent to Mines & Rails!!
>
>In one of the spoil heaps at Cromhall a piece of "Plate Rail" is said to
>have been found.
>
>In previous discussion David Bick has suggested to me that rails were more
>likely to have been used underground than on the surface. A comment I
>tended to agree with at the time although in this case, why the rail was
>found above ground is a bit of a mystery.
>
>Subsequent research however has suggested this may not be the case, at
least
>not in the South Gloucestershire area where passsages were usually not more
>than three feet in height " and often several inches lower". The method of
>hauling tubs was by rope girdle, a method used throughout Bristol and
>Somerset even into the twentieth century. The Commission Report on
Children
>in the mines 1842 (see Ian Winstanleys web site -
>http://wkweb5.cableinet.co.uk/ian.winstanley/child.htm) states that one of
>the lads working in Cromhall at that time called John Pick hauled 40 tubs
a
>day "unassisted: neither wheels nor plates".
>
>I am fairly sure that the spoil heap in which the rails were found predates
>the report (possibly commenced circa 1819, I am not however sure when this
>shaft ceased to be used. The Cromhall coal works (both New Engine and Old
>Engine) appear to have ceased work completely in the mid 1850's. It seems
>unlikely that rails were introduced below ground between the date of the
>commission report and the mines closure. The shaft in question was almost
>certainly not the main shaft being used at that time in anycase.
>
>The Commission Report also describes in detail the protection at the pit
>mouth of mines in the South Gloucestershire coalfield although it does not
>state this was the method used at all pits nor which pits it was used for.
>The description includes "..sliding traps, or stages......for effectively
>covering the shaft whilst the coal is landed. The top man, standing on the
>sliding stage, has merely to lay hold on the loaded tub as it swings over
>the pit, and by that action draws the stage, which runs on wheels and iron
>plates, across the pit's mouth."
>
>Could these be the plate rails found? Is this a common approach at the pit
>head? any comments?
>
>Regards
>
>DAVID HARDWICK
>
>
>
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