In message <018a01c66658$76662a40$83fefea9@oemcomputer>, Sallie Bassham 
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>Today I was asked when the name "bell pit" was first used? Since I
>don't know, I'm asking the list.
>I was further asked if Raistrick was the first to use the term.
>I am well aware of opinions about not using the term "bell pit" at
>all, or inappropriately (hence the quote marks) - so please go easy on
>repeating these!  However, has the term "bell pit" come into use
>because of the supposed shape underground or because the surface shape
>resembles an inverted bell - or both? or neither?
>Sallie Bassham


To possibly get the ball rolling - Lynn Willies in his article 
"Ironstone Mining in Derbyshire" Mining History 13:4 quotes Pilkington 
"View of the present State of Derbyshire" (1782)

"When ... it is seen on the surface.. It is taken out of the ground to a 
depth of eighteen or twenty yards. For this purpose a hole is made about 
the same size with the shaft of a coal pit. This is generally enlarged 
every way, as they go deeper into the earth, and at length assumes the 
shape of a bell. It is usual not to go lower than eighteen yards. Fresh 
ground is then broken and another hole of the same form and depth is 
begun and sunk in the earth .... soil near the surface is intermixed 
with the lower beds and rendered entirely useless ... and (land) 
receives greater injury from working mines of ironstone than with those 
of coal"

Lynn then quotes Farey (1811)

"A round pit of the usual size of a shaft is sunk, until the ironstone 
is reached, from three to ten yards deep, the first two or three yards 
being made cylindrical, and the part below it conical, in order to reach 
a larger surface of the stone, which being got below the shaft, and a 
drain laid across it for connecting with the next pit, the Workmen or 
Ironstone-men, begin to hollow out the Measures all round the shaft into 
the form of a bell (hence the name), throwing the refuse into the 
centre, and getting the ironstone as far as possible at all sides; which 
done the pit is abandoned, and another begun at a proper distance, the 
soil from which is tumbled into the last pit, until the stone is reached 
and got as before, when another pit is begun and so on; and this method 
of Bell-pits still continues to be used, unless when the depth becomes 
very considerable, or a hard Measure lays above the Ironstone, which may 
serve as a roof in Thurling for it, or working it in short banks as coal 
is wrought ... which should always be done where practicable in order to 
avoid the waste of ironstone in the angles or Buckles as they are called 
between each four adjacent pits."

As Lynn points out in the article, Farey obviously regarded Bell-Pits as 
a very old method of mining.

Hope this helps.

Dave Williams
-- 
David Williams