Ifton Colliery
Location - 1 mile north-west of St Martins (SJ321375)
Minerals - Coal
Working Life - Known
working life : 19th century-1968
Memories of Ifton Colliery - Harry Richards (SCMC Journal No.4)
The site of Ifton Colliery is in
Although the colliery is generally called Ifton nowadays, it was
originally known as the Gertrude Mine, named after a female member of the Craig
family who founded it. As officials, we always used the name Gertrude on our
daily reports.
I left elementary school at 14 and, since my father and brothers were
already miners, it seemed the natural thing to follow them into the pit. I well
remember meeting my father as he came up the shaft and then going with him to
see the manager in his office. He immediately told us that I could start work
underground on the very next day. Jobs were easy to get in those days providing
your father was reasonably respected as a workman by the management. Up to
then, I had been working part-time for a bread delivery firm after school hours
so was used to the idea of working. The thought of finishing work early in the
afternoon at 2.30-3.00pm was great but little did I realise that I would have
to start at some unearthly hour in the morning!
Going down the shaft on my first day was a frightening experience.
Between 12-14 men were cramped together in the cage, either standing, crouched
or sitting since there was no room for movement. As the cage gathered speed on
its descent into the depths, I remember experiencing a terrible feeling that
the bottom of the cage was falling out, leaving me stranded in mid air. This
feeling stayed with me for quite a few descents until it eventually became
normal procedure. The exception was when a certain winding engine driver called
Jim Evans was on duty. After a particularly rough ride, you would always hear
the older miners say "Mad Jim's on today". After a week or two, I was
able to buy a new pair of moleskin trousers which were the normal things worn.
An old miner remarked "He's signed on for life" and my subsequent 41
years proved him nearly right.
In the pit, wooden doors were fitted on the roadways to control the
direction of the air flow. My first job was to open and shut one of these to
allow ponies to pass through with a train (or journey) of tubs. My next job was
to couple together journeys of tubs for the ponies, the tubs being pushed
manually to the shunt by men called hutchers. The tubs were coupled together
loosely by links and, as each link tightened as the pony began to move, the
pony could tell how many tubs were in its journey. If any attempt was made to
increase the allotted number of tubs in the journey, the pony would refuse to
advance until the extra tubs had been uncoupled. The only names I can remember
for the ponies were Prince, Bob, Dobbin and Ned.
At that time, roof supports in the roadways consisted of horizontal
wooden bars across the roof with vertical wooden supports. On one occasion in a
roadway, the roof had lowered due to weight on the supports and the floor had
risen due to heaving so the pony was catching as it passed by. The drivers were
very attached to their ponies and this particular driver (not very bright)
refused to take his pony under the roof support and sent for the deputy
fireman. On arrival, the deputy grabbed a pick and proceeded to make a
temporary job since the accent was on output and the roof supports would be
changed on the repairing shift. As the deputy was making a hole in the floor to
increase the height, the pony driver was heard to say "his head's catching
not his feet"!
I can remember listening to a debate on TV on how the well-off members
of the community enjoyed riding with the hounds. Someone said that he knew some
miners who went horse riding and Arthur Scargill immediately answered "So
do I, pit ponies"! The ponies at Ifton between 1928-30 were reasonably
well treated but theirs was a hard life, only being brought to surface during
holiday breaks. They were housed in comfortable stables underground and were
well fed and watered by an ostler. At the end of their shift they would run out
to the stable at a considerable rate, taking everything before them. Some
drivers would indulge in the dangerous practice of riding on them, giving
conviction to Scargill's remarks.
Later on I became an engine driver, which was an important job with the
emphasis on production. Tubs of coal from faces below the main level were
winched up an incline, whereas those from faces above were lowered down by a
method called jigging. In this, there was a full tub at the top of the incline
connected to a cable which passed around a horizontal sheave wheel. The cable
then passed to the bottom of the incline where it was connected to an empty
tub. By using a brake on the sheave wheel, the full tub was lowered down and,
in doing so, lifted the empty tub up to the top. These crude methods were
phased out in 1930, soon after I started work - mechanisation was coming to
Ifton.
The worst thing that could happen was to make an error and stop the flow
of coal out of the mine. These were stationary winding engines without any
method of gauging position and I tell people today that they were harder to
drive than an aeroplane.
I then became a face worker and quickly found that it was a very hard,
tedious operation. There were usually teams (sets) of three men working a
section of the coal face, two colliers (coal hewers) and one filler, who was
quite often a son or other relative of one of the colliers. The method used was
a procedure called "bottom holing". Lying in a cramped position for
hours at a time, the colliers would cut a section out of the bottom of the face
using a hand pick. This was called "holing out". Wedge-shaped wooden
sections were then placed into the gap at intervals and the face was ready for
shotfiring.
Shotholes were bored by hand using a long cumbersome screw drill, which
was secured with wooden props to keep it parallel to the face. This was a very
skilled job since the shotholes had to be positioned just right to safely bring
down the maximum amount of coal when the shots were fired. The filler's job was
to load the loose coal into tubs and to push these along the roadway to the
shaft. If a tub was thought to contain any substance other than coal, eg rock,
dirt, etc, it was rejected and turned out at surface for everybody to see. The
filler had all the blame for that too - "Poor filler, what a
baptism"!
Each set filled and sent to surface over 20 tubs each shift, the tubs
containing 7-10 cwt each. To identify the tubs, each set would have its own
numbered tallies, made of leather and attached to the tubs with strong string
threaded through two holes. At surface, the mine owner had a weighman who
weighed each tub as it came out of the cage. He would record the weight of the
tub and the set it came from, thus ensuring that each set received payment for
their recorded tonnage. The miners also clubbed together to pay the wages of a
checkweighman, who checked that the tubs were correctly weighed and allocated
to the proper set.
The colliers provided their own tools and, at the end of each shift,
would bring out their picks and drill bits to be sharpened on the surface ready
for collection the following day. The colliers looked after their other tools
themselves and I can remember turning the grindle stone while my father
sharpened his pit axe.
Each set was only paid for the amount of coal it sent out of the mine
and there was no minimum wage in those days. This piece rate method of working
suited the mine owner because it encouraged the men to send out as much coal as
possible. Where coal was easy to cut, it was possible to make good money but
there were times when geological problems interfered with the cutting and there
was less coal sent out as a result. These lean times made the men frustrated
and short tempered and even my father, normally a pleasant, placid person, was
subject to these moods at times. I did most jobs at Ifton during my employment
but I am convinced that my father in his time worked much harder.
After hand cutting was phased out, coal was produced from 4 or 5
longwall faces, approximately 100-120 yards long. The coal was cut by machine
in the middle of the seam to a depth of about 3-3(
In the mechanised cutting process, the shearer disc cut and turned the
coal on to the moving chain. Stable holes were prepared by hand using
shotfiring methods, while the shearer moved upwards, ready for its advancement
on its return. The machine cut on its upward journey and ploughed downhill.
Advancement, or "pushing over", was done by automatic rams attached
to the conveyor chain. Before this was done, however, the machine was advanced
into the prepared stable in the roadway.
Another innovation was the introduction of storage bunkers. When a
stoppage occurred to the flow of coal out of the mine, it could be directed
into the bunkers so production could continue at the face. When the coal began
to move again, the bunkers could be emptied. Stoppages were frequent due to
haulage mishaps on the inclines. In later years, conveyor belts replaced rope
haulage and most of Ifton's production was conveyed by belts to a loading point
less than 100 yards from the winding shaft.
I was eventually made a Deputy and placed in charge of a section of the
mine called a working district. I was responsible for the health and safety of
the men and answerable to the manager for the working of that district. He was
required to make statutory reports daily, which were signed by over-officials
and kept securely on the surface. In the old days, the Deputy was called the
Fireman and fired all the shots. In later years, second grade Deputies were
introduced to fire most of the shots and they were called Shotfirers. This
allowed the Deputy more time for his other duties such as supervising work,
safety and of course production, which was always the dominating factor. To
become a Deputy, I had to pass an exam for (air measurement) gas detecting,
etc. This detecting was always done by reading the down turned flame on the
safety lamp which Deputies always carried.
In the old days before mechanised mining, the Deputy measured the work
done by each set of road rippers, etc and recorded any allowances due to them
for other work. Unlike the colliers, these sets were engaged on non-productive
but essential work, such as driving roadways, and they were paid per foot of
passage driven. The Deputy would mark the side of the passage at the extent of
their work and measure the distance back to the mark made the previous week.
The difference would be the distance on which their pay was calculated.
The Deputy's lot was not an easy one. The responsibilities were massive
and, with the manager on one side and the men you had grown up with on the
other side, it was very difficult (if not impossible) to find a happy medium.
Looking back over the 20 plus years that I was a Deputy, however, I pride (or
console!) myself that I came through reasonably well and that I can look both
the men and the manager in the eye when we meet today.
One thing that I remember well were the mice that lived underground.
They had presumably first come down in the ponies' food but, when ponies were
phased out in the 1930s, they had to look elsewhere and preyed on our food. We
had a constant battle with them over our "snapping", which we used to
hang from the roof. For some reason, they could negotiate string but not wire.
If you did not have a tin container and had wrapped your food in paper hung up
by a string, you could guarantee that the mice would get to it before you! I
remember once coming off the face at snap time to where we had hung up our
food. One miner was in time to see the mice scampering away, with large holes
where they had burrowed through the paper into his butties. Nonplussed he
reached for his snapping and one of his mates was shocked that he was going to
eat it. He replied, "If its good enough for them its good enough for
me". One of the roadways was nicknamed "Mouse's Alley" - it was
so low that even the mice caught their backs on the roof! All of the roadways
had names such as Lloyd's Dip, Hatton's Level and Rodway's Crut.
Around 1930, a terrible disaster happened at Gresford Colliery, about
10-12 miles from Ifton. I didn't know a lot about practical mining at that time
but I remember my father telling me that bad mining practices had played a part
in that terrible happening. Repair of airways had been neglected since this was
regarded as dead work, ie non-productive. On that memorable Sunday afternoon,
an enterprising bus contractor organised a conveyance to Gresford. There were
hundreds of sightseers at the pithead and I regret to say that I was in the
crowd. It struck me at the time how helpless everyone was and from that time I
decided that, if my future was to be in mining, I would make every endeavour to
be of some use. I decided then to become trained in the Rescue Brigade.
You couldn't just become a Rescueman and it was some time before I was
even given the chance to attend a selection course. This involved daily
attendance over a period of two weeks for extensive training. We had to spend 2
hour sessions in a prepared gas-filled chamber erecting sandbag stoppings, etc.
This was very strenuous work and it succeeded in its objective of
"separating the men from the boys". I am pleased to say that I came
through successfully and I stayed in the service for over 15 years, only
leaving because of the age limit.
After qualifying, rescue practices consisted of four visits per year to
the Rescue Station at Wrexham or at one of the neighbouring pits. Rescuemen
always visited other pits in their area to become familiar with them in case of
emergencies. At the station each man assembled his own apparatus, which was
checked by the Captain before we entered the gas-filled chamber for a gruelling
2 hour session in a red hot atmosphere. The cumbersome apparatus consisted of a
heavy canister containing a supply of over 2 hours of oxygen, which was
breathed through the mouth and controlled by valves. There was a clip over the
nose and, of course, no talking. After donning the apparatus, everything was
done by a code of signals sounded on a small hooter attached to the apparatus.
The Captain gave the signal for each operation and was required to make a
detailed report after each session.
Rescue teams were a vital part of mining and every colliery had to have
by law a percentage of trained rescue men. Ifton had two teams of 5-6 men. It
was a voluntary service for which we received no extra pay, until later years
when a small retaining fee was paid. The job was very strenuous and demanding
but the worthwhile feeling of being prepared and involved gave us all a great
deal of satisfaction. I became Captain for a number of years and received the
three medals awarded for 5 years (Bronze), 10 years (Silver) and 15 years
(Gold) long service. We attended most pits in the area during that time, mostly
for underground fires, etc but were fortunate that no lives were involved.
Underground fires were quite common and I remember one time where our team was
on duty waiting to go down. The manager came over and remarked "We can't
sell our coal as people say it won't burn - they should see it down
there!".
I well remember the first callout that came soon after I joined the
Rescue Brigade, to a fire down a small old pit called Llay Hall near Wrexham. I
was the youngest member on the team and the hundreds of villagers sightseeing
at the pithead did not help my composure as it brought back memories of
Gresford. The fire was situated at the bottom end of a face where the coal
cutting machine turned round. That machine cut a long wall face (a method not used
at Ifton) as it went up and down, cutting in both directions. Again, bad
practice had prevailed with the stable (turning point) not being packed off
securely. There was water available so we proceeded to put the fire out with
hoses. We did a two hour stint that night before being relieved by another team
and found that the fire had been extinguished when we returned the following
day.
During the years, I saw some phenomenal changes in the pit. Ifton
changed over to longwall faces, a new steel headgear, electric winding engine
and a modern washery and screens at surface. One of the most welcome changes in
later years was the pithead baths - Ifton was then really "on the
map". The changes underground were intended to make it safer for working but
they were not always welcomed by the older miners who were set in their ways.
Wooden roof supports were replaced with steel props on faces and steel arches
on roadways. Coal dust in the air could be a danger as it sometimes exploded,
so dust suppression was introduced on faces and at loading points. Better
lighting and first aid appeared, together with compulsory steel helmets and
safety boots for the miners. As trained first aid personnel we had access to
morphia, which we were able to administer when necessary because it took so
long to get a doctor to the scene.
Despite rigid safety measures, accidents occurred at regular intervals
and some of these were fatal. It was noticeable that there was a spate of bad
accidents when long wall faces came into vogue. I will give two examples of bad
accidents to demonstrate how dangerous the job was.
In the first example, a friend of mine in my early days was waiting to
unhook a journey proceeding up dip. An overhead girder snapped and fell,
striking him on the head and killing him instantly. The girder was a used tram
line, a cheap form of roof support that had found its way into mining.
Following the accident, this type of girder was condemned since it was realised
that they had lost structural strength and could snap like a carrot at any
time.
In the second example, I had a rare week off work and my workmate was
allowed to change shifts from nights to days. During that week he was crushed
between tubs and a steel girder which crossed the roadway to carry a motor and
gearing to drive a small conveyor at a loading point. Again, this method of
operation was condemned after the accident and a new construction was erected
on future loading points.
We took these occurrences in our stride at the time but they gave cause
for much reflection in later years. One old miner often said that there was no
such thing as an accident, the fault could always be directed at somebody. I
also remember the first overman in charge I worked for, who often spoke in
similes. He would say "Its surprising what a lot of difference a bit of
difference makes". He would use these words when a lift or some help was
required because many jobs were much easier when done by two persons.
During my time, Ifton had always been connected to Chirk Green pit, the
latter acting as the upcast shaft. After Black Park Colliery closed, I recall a
connection being driven to join up with that as well. As a safety measure,
officials had to regularly travel these roadways to check on their condition.
They went one way underground and returned on the surface. It was necessary to
be familiar with these ways out in case of emergency where we couldn't use the
main shafts.
As the colliery began to expand, the National Coal Board built a number
of new houses to accommodate the influx of workers from other areas, whom we in
the village regarded as foreigners. One such family came from the
Closure of Ifton was due to several reasons, the chief one being the
underground fires which we referred to as "heating". We encountered a
lot of trouble over the years with heating at our colliery and I firmly believe
that bad mining practices were the main reason for their occurrence. Old
workings and roadways were often not packed with waste or sealed off securely
and this allowed oxygen to circulate. Even where packing was done, this
sometimes included combustible material such as coal which would readily
ignite.
There was only one sure way of dealing with breakouts of fire and that
is by erecting a complete wall ("stopping") of sandbags on the intake
side. This sealed off the workings and prevented any further oxygen getting in.
The problem with this, however, was that it meant the loss of a working face
and complete stopping was only done at Ifton as a last resort. The alternative
usually employed was to dig the burning coal out of the sides of roadways and
to replace it with sandbag stoppings. In later years, a quick setting cement
mixture was pumped into the cavities instead.
We once had a rather long fight against a fire at our colliery over
several days. Our team went on duty on the afternoon shift to do our allotted
two hours stint and we were met by the Overman. He informed us that good
progress was being made due to the help of the rescue team preceding us, who
had organised the filling of sandbags and thus released men for other jobs.
Such work was outside the required duties of the rescue team, which was
supposed to only be on standby with apparatus fitted ready for emergency.
A member of our team appointed himself as our spokesman and bluntly
informed the overman that we intended to comply with the regulations. The
manager was informed and he came down to speak to us. He hadn't been at the
colliery long and he was a real down to earth product of
The bottling up procedure for fires went on for some years and, with
constant observation of danger spots, proved quite successful. In the last few
years, however, breakouts became more frequent and too close to the main shaft
for comfort. I was at Ifton until the end and have a photograph of a small
consignment going down on the last shift, taken by a local paper.
Memories of Ifton Colliery - Graham Lloyd
I left school in 1936 when I was aged 15, together with four of my
friends. I didn't have any relatives working down Ifton Colliery but I did have
a friend who already worked there. He told all five of us that we could get
much more money working down the pit than anywhere else (I was working for a
butcher at the time) so we applied for jobs and I spent the next 3 years there.
On my first day I started on the Day Shift (6.00am until 2.00pm) and
went straight underground with no training. There were 3 shifts and on each
shift there were 200-250 men working underground and on surface. I had mixed
feelings when I first got into the cage and I stood by myself as all the other
miners stood back from me. I later found out that most new people were sick
when the cage lifted up about a foot then started down at great speed. I wasn't
sick myself but that is why they gave me a wide berth! The cage had four decks
with about 10 men to a deck. My first job underground was at the shaft bottom,
uncoupling tubs of coal and hutching (pushing) them to the cage. This took
eight tubs (two to a deck) up the shaft at a time, a similar cage coming down
at the same time. The tubs weighed 5cwt and were not to hard to hutch but it
was a bit harder to lift when they came off the rails. We had to lift the
middle and swing our bum over but even the smallest could do this. When I came
up I had to bike 6 miles home to Oswestry. There were no pit head baths at that
time but I was lucky because we were one of the few families who had a bath at
home.
At some mines the miners gave their tallies to the onsetter before
getting into the cage but we didn't do it that way. We took our tallies home
with us and handed them in at the lamproom to get our lamp. This also acted as
a clocking in mechanism. We never actually had much contact with the lampman
because everything was done through an open window. When the shift was over we
took our lamp back and was handed our tally. The tally number was on our lamp
and that way they knew we had come up. If there were any lamps missing they
went to look for them. The first men out of the cage on descending were the
firemen and shotlighters. The fireman went through our pockets to search for
contraband such as matches or cigarettes. Most miners hid theirs in a tin under
their bike seat for when they finished shift and in those days nobody would
touch them.
It was not a wet pit, some parts of it were quite cool, but the deeper
we went the hotter it got. Lloyds Haulage was hot and, as we went down, one of
the reasons for the manholes in the side walls was to store our clothes. We would
maybe place our jacket in one and shirt in another and so on. We had to walk to
work from the shaft bottom but we were never allowed to walk in the haulage way
when it was running. Down below there were lots of sacks of limestone dust in
the form of a fine white powder. One of our jobs was to chuck this about on the
roadways as we went to our shift. This was heavier than coal dust and stopped
it getting in the air as we walked to work. We had our breaks where we worked
but I only remember having half an hour. This depended on the colliers as they
got paid for what coal they sent out from their seam. We took food in snap tins
and water in tin bottles. My favourite was jam and cheese butties. We did get
mice down the pit and they did like our snap if they could get at it! I quickly
learned and put mine in a tin but we did leave bits of bread for them to eat.
They did use ponies at one time but not when I was down there. The stables were
still there but the firemen and shotlighters used them as offices. The lamp
relighter was also in the stables.
Although I went to night school after a while, most of what I learned
was down the pit itself. I particularly wanted to know more about the engines.
The clothes we wore were our own as there was nothing provided. On my first
payday I bought a pair of moleskin trousers which seemed to be the favourite
item worn by miners. We were always given our pay in our own pay tin which had
our tally number on. This was 5 inches high and 3 inches across with the top
half open - our money was stuffed inside it. We would take out the money and
hand it back in for the following week. I can't quite remember what we got paid
but I think it was about 36 shillings. My old job was working 11 hours a day
for 5 shillings a week so you can see why we went down the mine. It was very
poor pay working for a butcher.
We had no helmet and our only lamp was a very large and heavy electric
one, 9 inches high by 4 inches around the base. The light was on the top and we
turned the base clockwise to switch it on. When i started driving engines I
also had an oil lamp. We used our oil lamps to test for gas and were told to
place the lamp near to the engines. We tested all around it and if the flame
turned blue we waited for the walking fireman to check it and give the go ahead
to work. If they went out, the lamps could be relit down below by the shot
lighter or a fireman. The lamps were made by E Thomas & Williams Ltd of
Aberdare. We went down like a Christmas tree with two lamps, oil can, bottle of
water and a snap tin - all hanging on our belt except for the big lamp. I used
to work only the morning and night shifts as the afternoon shifts were only for
ripping.
I was eventually moved to a very deep coal seam which we called Lloyds
Haulage (also known as Lloyds Dip). This haulage way was very steep, the first
stage was at least three quarters of a mile long (at an angle of 1 in 3) and
then it levelled off for about half a mile. There were what was known as
"Throw Ons" (or as one bright spark called them Throw Me Ons), the
purpose of which was to put tubs that came off the rails back on again. They
consisted of a piece of hard wood placed at the side of the rail track and a 4
foot length of rail nailed down at an angle, 18 inches wide at the end. There
was one each side of the track at intervals. The tubs had to be unclipped and
hutched on the level sections. They were then clipped to the rope again on an
endless haulageway. The remainder of the journey went on down for maybe a mile
to the coal seam, where I worked on the Pan Shaker. The only way I can describe
the Pan Shaker is to imagine a 44 gallon oil drum slit from top to bottom
lengthways (a bit like a kid's slide). These were much thicker, however, and
about 10 feet long, all joined together in a line. A compressed air motor
operated an arm which pulled the pans backwards and forwards. The colliers
loaded coal onto them and it shook the coal along to the tub loaders (there
were no belts in those days). Once the tubs were loaded, they were turned and
sent back up the haulage way.
They used compressed air drills to drill the coal face so that the
shotlighter could put in the powder and detonator to crack the seam. They then
used their picks (with a short blade about 14 inches long) to pull the coal
down so it could be loaded on to the pans to shake down to the tub loaders.
They did have a coal cutter but all it did was cut a 3 inch strip of dirt 4
feet up the seam - it looked like a chain saw on a very large scale
Then I was moved to the "500ft Down" haulageway to where men
were opening up a new seam. This consisted of a static engine operating a
single rope. It was hard work since two empty tubs were pushed to the top of a
dip and lowered down to where to men worked. When they reached the working
face, the colliers pulled on a signal wire once to let me know to stop the
engine. When the tubs were loaded, the colliers pulled on the wire twice and I
pulled them up and let two more empty tubs down. I was not allowed to ride down
in the empty tubs but once two big miners made me! One night the same miners
rang the bell to pull them up in the tubs and I pulled them up too fast. One
didn't like it at all so he got me by the neck and told me he had buried better
****** than me down there! I never did find out where this roadway went as it
was a long way down to where the two men worked but it carried on down with no
rails. I asked one of the colliers where it went to and he did say about
another 400ft but never try to go down there. I wondered if it was an escape road
as I did read that they made a steep road to Black Park Pit.
The top of this incline joined the main two line roadway to the shaft
bottom which was operated by an endless rope. This rope was not so thick, it
pulled about 16 tubs (called a "journey") and I had to stop this rope
to put my two tubs on the back of the journey. When the two tubs had been
hauled up the incline, I used locking pins that were 1 inch thick and 18 inches
long placed in the spokes of the wheels to stop the tubs moving. There was a chain
about 5ft long with a hook at each end, one hook went in the tow bar of the
first truck and the other on the rope. After the locking pins were taken out of
the wheels and the haulage restarted you took the last 18 inches of the chain
and, as the tubs moved off, you wound the chain around the rope then the chain
was slipped in the hook. We then had to hold the chain so it slipped along the
rope, it could not be too tight and it had to be done this way because the 5
tubs closed up. This is when fingers could be lost as it had to be held until
the slack was taken up.
It was not long before I moved back to Lloyds to a side working where I
worked on a Main & Tail engine, which pulled out about 16 tubs on a flat
roadway. It had a rope attached to the front tub and one to the rear, the front
pulled the tubs from the working and the rear rope pulled the empties back to
the working. The haulage signals were 1 bell to Stop, 2 bells to Start and 3
bells to go home. On an endless rope you knew when you had a problem such as a
"thitener". This was when two tubs came off the rails and wedged up
against the wall side. You then got out of the way fast as the rope whipped
like a snake. We had man holes cut in the side of the roadway so we could
shelter from this. Operating an engine could be a lonely job as we were on our
own most of the time. However, I remember once when I worked on the Pan Shaker
that we were having our snap and there was little chap bragging that he could
hurt anyone who put their finger in his mouth, even though he had no teeth. One
of the colliers got a rail spike and put it in this chap's mouth. He thought it
was a finger in the semi dark and he was biting like hell with the water
running from the side of his mouth! One sad memory was when a collier tried to
hold up a roof with his back. They left his cap where he died and it was still
there when I left the pit.
When the coal tubs came up to surface they were tipped into a washer
which took out the rock and dirt. The coal was then loaded into railway trucks
and in those days the company had their own name on the trucks (W Y Craig and
Son ). The only time I saw any coal dumped on the surface was when we
over-produced. The colliery was linked to the main Paddington-Liverpool railway
line at Gobowen. The pit had two shunting engines. The waste was taken up to
the tip (or slag heap as we called it) by tubs running on railway lines pulled
by a rope engine. There used to be a very large tip but it has since been
bulldozed and landscaped. There were the offices, lamproom and blacksmiths shop
where they sharpened the colliers' picks. Winston Churchill once visited the
pit and mark the occasion a one yard square of coal was cut out, placed on a
flat bogey and sent to were he lived.
Most miners came from St Martins but others were from Whittington,
Gobowen, Chirk and Weston Rhyn. The Chirk miners came when Black Park Pit
closed. Myself and my pals did not take part in the life of Ifton village as we
lived at Oswestry and it was a 12 mile round trip. There was a miners welfare
there, I believe it was built some time in the 1930s, but I only used it once.
The only holiday I can remember having was once when we over-produced and were
put on a 3 day week. The company got the dole people down to sign us on for 4
days dole. When we were laid off, the younger ones were taken by bus each day
for 3 days to the Derbyshire Miners Research Centre near Buxton. We were taken
into different buildings, one with miners' tools which were explained to us
then to a room with safety things in it. On the third day we were taken in to a
narrow passage with a mockup of a mining roadway with coal tubs, pit props and
a half ring that held up the roof, as well as lots of coal dust. We were taken
through this roadway and out of the other end and then taken to sit on the hill
side and told to wait. They told us to cover our ears and then all hell broke
lose with a mine explosion. Everything came flying out - tubs, pit props, rings
and rock - with a hell of a bang and flames.
I left the mine when the war started and five of us who had started in
the pit together from school were all called up into the army. They asked us if
we wanted to go back down the pit but we all said that we didn't as we thought
the war would last so long. I am sorry to say that only three of us came back.
When the war was over I got married and went to live in
The Shaft Sinking Saga at Ifton Colliery 1912-44 (SCMC Journal No.3)
Ifton Colliery is situated in the northern part of the spur of the
Denbighshire Coalfield, which passes into
In March 1912, a German company was employed to start sinking and by
1914 they were 415yds down. Due to the war, the Government stepped in and
stopped the sinking but the colliery company formed an inset at this level and
got the coal by driving two tunnels, one north and the other south (Fig.4). The
tunnels reached coal in 1921 and 1923 respectively and, during the years of
development, Brynkinalt Colliery continued to produce coal. The old workings
and new shaft were connected in 1921 and for some years both Brynkinalt and Ifton
produced coal until Brynkinalt was closed for coaling in 1928. It then became
the upcast and emergency shaft for Ifton Colliery, which was a single shaft
site.
At this time, production was about 1,000 tons per day with 1,357 men,
the largest mine
A borehole, commencing at 18" diameter, was put down from the base
of the existing shaft to the full depth of 75yds without interfering with
production but there was no guarantee that it was truly vertical. The borers
gave a guarantee, however, that it would be less than 2ft out and later it was
found to be less than 1ft 10ins. To do the boring, it was necessary to make a
small engine house in the shaft side. Work was done on night shift and at a
rate of 4-6ft per shift, the hole being completed in 2 months. The deep level
tunnel reached the position beneath the existing shaft and located the borehole
in May 1942. The cavity for the new pit bottom was then formed and bricked 2ft
thick, 16ft high and 15ft wide to accommodate the new 15ft shaft. It was then
necessary to sink downwards from the new pit bottom for 20yds using
conventional methods to form the new sump. After the sump was completed, shaft
"raising" commenced. The company used its own employees, partly as
they felt the work needed careful treatment since they would be driving upwards
to connect with their working shaft.
The shaft raising method used was fairly conventional and it is
described in "Iron & Coal Trades Review" for September 14th 1951.
The drawings accompanying that article show the method clearly. The work of
raising continued without affecting the shaft operations above until a point
had been reached where only 10yds remained solid. From here, all work was
carried out at night when the shaft winding operations above were at a
standstill. The shaft was completed in August 1944 and the total cost of the
new shaft, which was done entirely by one chargeman and two men including the
borehole, worked out at £47-4s-0d per yard. A shaft about half this diameter 80
years before on the Titterstone Clee Hill cost this much. Before full depth
winding could commence, a larger winding drum had to be fitted to take the
extended rope. Ifton Shaft was now 482yds deep.
In 1947, the colliery was nationalised along with its neighbour in
By 1960, the modernised Ifton Colliery had a manpower of 1,250 and a
daily output of 1,750 tons. The colliery eventually closed in 1968.
Surface Remains
The site is now used by other firms but a number of old colliery
buildings still remain, including the pithead baths and office block. A small
coal tub mounted on rails has been preserved as a memorial to the mine and the
miners welfare building still survives in the village. If you feel active, the
line of the old mineral railway can be followed to its junction with the main
line at Preesgweene.