Nelson Pit

Nelson Pit was a coal mine operating on the Manchester Coalfield from the 1830s or 1840s in Shakerley, Tyldesley, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England.

Originally named Shakerley Colliery, the pit was sunk on land leased by Ellis Fletcher and worked by Nathan Eckersley in 1851. In 1861 the colliery passed to William Ramsden^[1] who owned Messhing Trees Colliery half a mile to the south. The shaft was sunk to 840 feet and the pit produced house coal from the Trencherbone mine.^[2] The colliery was renamed after 1880.^[3] The shaft was deepened to the Arley mine at 1486 feet. Nelson Pit closed in 1938.^[4] Shakerley Colliery and Messhing Trees were owned by William Ramsden's Shakerley Collieries.

This colliery was isolated from the main roads and railway and a toll road, Shakerley Lane, was built to the Bolton to Leigh turnpike which continued to charge tolls until 1948. After the opening of the Tyldesley Loopline in 1864, William Ramsden built a mineral railway to link his collieries to the main line east of the Tyldesley Coal Company's sidings.^[3]

The colliery was the scene of a disaster when six men died when the cage rope broke on 2 October 1883.^[5]

The colliery was sold to Manchester Collieries in 1935 and abandoned in October 1938.^[6]

References

1. ^ Collieries of the United Kingdom At Work in 1869: North and East Lancashire, The Coalmining History Research Centre, http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cmhrc/lom69nel2.htm, retrieved 2011-02-19 
2. ^ North and East Lancashire's Mining Industry in 1896, projects.exeter.ac.uk, http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/mhn/1896-80.htm, retrieved 2011-04-02 
3. ^ ^{a b} Townley 1995, p. 311
4. ^ Hayes 2004, p. 65
5. ^ (PDF) Nelson Colliery Disaster, cmhrc.co.uk, p. 27, http://www.cmhrc.co.uk/cms/document/1882_83.pdf, retrieved 2011-02-27 
6. ^ Townley 1995, p. 312

Bibliography

• Hayes, Geoffrey (2004), Collieries and their Railways in the Manchester Coalfields, Landmark, ISBN 1-84306-135-X 
• Townley, C.H.A.; Appleton, C.A., Matthew, Smith, C.E., Peden (1995), The Industrial railways of Bolton, Bury and the Manchester Coalfield, Part Two, The Manchester Coalfield, Runpast, ISBN 1-870754-32-8 

Coordinates: 53°31′20″N 2°27′51″W / 53.5223°N 2.4643°W / 53.5223; -2.4643