*Coal from Camerton (Somerset) - £15.00 +p&p*

Neil Macmillen with Mike Chapman, sb, 160 pages. 210x210mm. Printed on
gloss art paper, perfect bound with laminated covers.


(Publishers Description) This is the story of one village, in the context
of the whole coalfield, which reflected life in this part of Somerset for
over two hundred years. The North Somerset Coalfield is situated in an
Arcadian landscape of valleys and streams, woods and fields only a few
miles to the south west of Bath. Even today it is a somewhat secluded area,
where access from neighbouring towns has always been difficult. It was an
area isolated from the other coalfields in the Midlands and South Wales
until the coming of the railways. The populations of Bristol and Bath were
growing at the end of the 18th century increasing the need for easily
accessible coal and in this unlikely area, amid the green hills of
Somerset, there were real possibilities of meeting that demand.
Furthermore, the coal owners were men of vision and enterprise. They were
prepared to take risks to exploit the coal beneath their land and to look
for the possibility of markets beyond their immediate area. There were
difficulties to overcome. The coalfield would prove to be one of the most
contorted and faulted in the United Kingdom, the seams of coal being thin
and rarely level, although mostly free from the dangers of firedamp. Mining
here would call for different methods from other coalfields. The whole area
is best understood as being distorted into the shape of a basin, tilted to
the east, in which the seams of coal and rock form a series of layers which
lie parallel to the shape of the bowl. This symmetrical model is, however,
seriously disturbed by the faults and folds which have been caused by the
northward movement of the Mendip Hills. Only a small portion of the coal
measures are exposed at the surface as outcrops, due to the covering of
secondary limestone rocks, the Lias and Oolite, which lie above the coal
measures. The seams themselves fall into three distinct groups separated by
beds of unproductive sandstones and shales, but only the Upper Coal Group
was mined at Camerton at the northern eastern edge of the coalfield. This
group contains two well-known series of coal-bearing rocks, the first,
known as the Radstock series being worked at Camerton, known as the
‘Camerton’ series by the local miners. Lying between 500-700 feet below the
surface, it forms a layer about 131/2 feet thick containing six veins which
vary in thickness from 9ins to 2ft 4ins, each known by its own local name.
The coal from the Radstock series was known to burn clearly and brightly,
giving out a good heat and leaving little ash, useful for household
purposes. Camerton was the last pit in Somerset to bring coal to the
surface from this series. As a result of the difficulties caused by the
coalfield being heavily faulted the introduction of underground machinery
and other improvements was often delayed although, for the same reason,
Somerset miners were regarded as the most skilful and resourceful in the
country. This is well illustrated by the comments made by William Smith in
his correspondence in 1804, included below. Consequently, extraction became
increasingly uneconomic during the early 20th century, even though it has
been estimated that some four thousand million tons of coal still remain
untapped in the Somerset coalfield. Nevertheless, the vision, determination
and exploration of the strata came together to enable this coalfield with
character to be mined for almost two hundred years



*North Staffordshire Collieries on the Hill North of Chell  (Stoke on
Trent)- £7.50  + P&P*

Alan Baker, SB, 64 pages. 275x215mm. Printed on gloss art paper, perfect
bound with laminated covers

Being a short history of the mines and railways at Chell, Turnhurst,
Oxford, Wedgwood and Newchapel, situated at the northernmost extremity of
the North Staffordshire Coalfield

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