The Museum has more than 40 old mine shafts on its site. These have largely been lost, infilled, collapsed, stabilised or capped. The shaft that has been selected as the centre-piece of Racecourse Colliery was originally one of the Earl of Dudley's small pits, Coneygree Colliery Pit No. 126, which operated between 1860 and 1902. After the pit was abandoned, all the surface landmarks were removed and the shaft itself was eventually filled in.
Work started on the creation of Racecourse Colliery in 1979, and apart from the headframe, all work has been carried out on Sundays by volunteers from Birmingham Enterprise Club and the Friends of the Black Country Museum Mining Group. The colliery has been re-created in exactly the same sequence as would an actual working Black Country pit. The shaft has been re-opened to a depth of 64 feet, its original depth was approximately 120 feet. The lining brickwork has also been repaired.
The buildings and other features are either replicas of known mining landmarks, or have been devised on the basis of photographs and existing knowledge of old Black Country pits. The exception to this is the weighbridge house which is a re-located building. It originally stood on Rolfe Street in Smethwick, in Birmingham Canal Navigation's wharf yard. It was probably built in the early years of last century. The colliery has been called Racecourse Colliery because the land on which it stands was originally the Earl of Dudley's private racecourse which was closed when the railway line from Dudley to Wolverhampton was built in 1852.
Coal mining played an important part in the history of the Black Country - it was the basis for its industrial development. In the nineteenth century commentators spoke of the this region as a great coalfield, and of the "earth turned inside out" by all the mining activity. However, the mines were not the large scale operations that we know of today, but small "rough and ready" pits similar to our Racecourse Colliery. There were many as five or six hundred small pits like this in the Black Country.
| Reference: | 514 |
| Keywords: | Mine Earl Pit Shaft 1860 1902 Weighbridge Frame Thick Seam MCOL BCLM |
| Archive Ref: | Photograph from Guide Book Notes from Guide Notes |
| Updated: | 11/9/2001 12:13:09 |