Thanks indeed - as a North Somerset man, I should feel quite at home!
|Bill Krouwel
>>> Peter Claughton <[log in to unmask]> 10/21/2011 3:06 am >>>
At 12:02 20/10/2011, W Krouwel wrote:
>Does anyone have knowledge of the mines around Hook (South Pembs) on
>the south bank of the Cleddau estuary?
>
Bill,
The mines in the Hook area, in the parish of Langum (now incorrectly
spelt Llangwm) and extending into Freystrop, worked a series of
anthracite seams, including the Timber and Rock veins. By far the
best published account will be found in Martin Connop Price's book
Forgotten Coalfield. Up until the mid 19th century Hook Colliery was
a series of unconnected small pits. These were consolidated and
worked as one unit by the inter-war period working focused on the
Margaret Pit and an associated slant. A standard gauge branch line
was brought in from the main line railway at Johnston the 1920s. The
Hook Colliery was the only Pembrokeshire pit working at the time of
Nationalisation and it was closed in 1948. There were attempts to
open up a new pit in the eastern part of the colliery at that period
but that failed. The former owner/manager Harcourt Roberts tried to
encourage renewed working in the 1950s but that was not successful.
A substantial quay for river / coastal shipment is still extant,
having been used up until at least the late 1930s. There was an
aerial ropeway to the pits south east of Hook Quay and a number of
tramways. I haven't been down there lately, but there were remains of
the washing plant at the Margaret Pit site. One winding engine house
is now inhabited - the beam pumping engine house on the same shaft
was also inhabited until the 1990s (cannot remember the exact date
off the top of my head) when it started to collapse into the shaft
and had to be demolished. There will be evidence for immediate post
medieval working, perhaps even earlier working, if you look for it -
their proximity to the river with coal outcropping along the bank,
from Hook through to Freystrop, made them prime candidates for early working.
Peter
Dr Peter Claughton,
Blaenpant Morfil, nr. Rosebush, Clynderwen, Pembrokeshire, Wales SA66 7RE.
Tel. +44 (0)1437 532578; Fax. +44 (0)1437 532921; Mobile +44 (0)7831 427599
Hon. University Fellow - College of Humanities, University of Exeter
http://people.exeter.ac.uk/pfclaugh/about.htm
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Co-owner - mining-history e-mail discussion list.
See http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/files/mining-history/ for details.
Mining History Pages - http://www.people.exeter.ac.uk/pfclaugh/mhinf/
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