Having now looked at the account for sinking Hanging Hey pit i see that the 
relevant entry is "Mar. Paid colliers soughing & feighing and taking off 
water in the Allen Car and Hanging Hey Pits". The suggestions of meanings 
that you have had all suggest a connection with waste or rubbish however 
beware as each meaning is slighty different and from different regions. The 
vernacular use in one area may not fit exactly with the use elsewhere. In 
this case after seeing the context i would suggst that it relates to the 
removal of waste from driving a (or cleaning out an existing) sough draining 
the Hanging Hey and Allan Car pits. The account suggests that the Allan Car 
was an existing pit and the sough would therefore be driven to an existing 
drainage system. Both Allan Car and Hanging Hey are probably field names and 
so this may give you an idea of the scale and style of mining at the time. 
The fields may be present on surviving tithe awards or estate plans.

From reading the account it is clear that the main sinking was complete 
before the charges for feighing, but two months later is an entry for giving 
"the colliers to drink for the bottom coal" suggesting that some further 
sinking had happened after the previous november when the sinkers were payed 
for 80 yards at 8d. This suggests that the sinkers, who even at that date 
could have been specialist contractors were employed just to sink the shaft 
and were not payed for the feighing and soughing or sinking from the Hard 
Bed Coal to the Soft Bed Coal (the bottom coal) this was done by colliers.

Martin Roe

Meerstone Archaeological Consultancy 
http://www.martinroe.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/meerstone.htm

Lead Mining in the Yorkshire Dales, 
http://www.martinroe.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk




>From: David Cross <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: "The mining-history list." <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Feighing or faying - what is it?
>Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2007 20:24:48 +0100
>
>Thank you all for your responses, which I very much appreciate.
>
>The reference to feighing occurs in the Shibden Hall (Lister) papers in 
>Calderdale Archives, in the
>financial accounts for the sinking of the Hanging Hey pit in 1750-52 (this 
>record has been well
>used; articles on it appear in the transactions of the Halifax Antiq. 
>Society in the '30s and in British
>Mining in 1975 - I haven't yet obtained a copy of the latter).  Two sinkers 
>were contracted to dig
>the pit at 8d per yard.  When most of the sinking had been completed, the 
>sinkers were paid 15/-
>to £1 per week for several weeks to carry out feighing - clearly a 
>significant exercise.
>
>My inclination was to Trevor and Graham's suggestion that feighing is the 
>removal of refuse,
>though it does occur to me that surely the 8d per yard must include removal 
>of spoil, on purely
>practical grounds (this may be an excessively naive conclusion).  
>Alternatively, perhaps, the
>willingness of the landowner to fork out considerable sums for feighing 
>supports Graham's
>alternative definition, that is the removal of coal found during the 
>sinking process.
>
>A suggestive point is that feighing took place when sinking was virtually 
>complete; also Hanging
>Hey was connected in some way to another, probably disused, pit on the 
>Shibden estate (Allen
>Carr).  Perhaps it refers to the clearing out of neglected passages or the 
>driving of a connection
>between the two and subsequent removal of the coal found.  Certainly the 
>accounts cite feighing
>in Allen Carr and Hanging Hey separately and specifically.
>
>David C.

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