----- Original Message -----
From: "David Kitching" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, May 17, 2003 7:23 AM
Subject: Winding question
Whilst reading a recently discovered report on the operation of the Poynton
Collieries, Cheshire, in 1826 I found myself wondering about control of the
winding
of coal.
The report states:
"The pits are generally sunk in pairs at from 50 to 150 yards as under - a
Winding
Engine placed between them draws the coals from both. Two rope drums wrot by
spur
wheels, work 2 ropes on each pit. The one pit is sunk generally plum rise
from the
other.
The deep pit is called the Lower Pit the rise pit the Bye Pit."
In such cases as those described how might the communication be effected
between the
banksmen and hookers-on and the engineman who would necessarily be at some
distance
from the shaft? Was this system of one winding engine winding on two ropes
each from
two shafts common practice?
Winding two shafts from the same engine via two drums would introduce
considerable
complication and seems to me to be that this system was an accident waiting
to
happen. That said, there are no records of winding accidents at these pits
at this
time that I have been able to find. I would welcome any comments.
Is the use of the term "Bye Pit" to describe the shaft to the rise common in
the
industry? Why Bye?
Cheers,
David Kitching
One winding engine drawing out of two shafts was not at all unusual,
particularly with older pits. It was a common arrangement in the South
Staffordshire coalfield, and the preserved site at Snibberston Colliery in
Leicestershire has such. More frequently the shafts were on one side of the
winding house but could be one on each side; the Boulby Potash Mine works
with a similar arrangement although the winders are back to back, each
winding out of its own shaft.
Each shaft might have its own complete headgear, as in South Staffs., or a
joined or tandem frame such as Grange Colliery, Shropshire (still standing I
think), Babbington in Notts., and Bedlington "A" in Northunberland (both
these latter very definitely gone).
Shaft top/bottom and winding engine communication was usually by mechanical
rapper system; pulling on the end of a rope lifted a large hammer which fell
back onto some significant metal object (wagon buffer perhaps) to give the
necessary loud clang. Depending on the size of the colliery and the
proximity of the shafts it might have been necessary to have upto four such
hammers situated near the winding engineman, from the two pit bottoms and
the two banks, to indicate when winding could commence.
I remember being impressed by the large range of electrically lit shaft
signal indicators in the upcast winding house at Thornley Colliery, Co.
Durham in 1970, although this was a conventional layout of two shafts each
with own separate winding gear. However hidden away in a dark corner of the
winding house, built about 1870, were four disused mechanical hammer
rappers, each painted a different colour and falling onto a separate object
to make a distinctive sound. In this case I think that three were from
different landings in the shaft and of course the shaft top.
As regards a "Bye" pit, inbye and outbye are well known phrases in mining
and suggest travel so my suggestion is that a "Bye" pit is what we might now
term a man-riding shaft.
Simon Chapman
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