Mining in Mamble was certainly underway in the mid-17th century, with
workings on the outcrop in the neighbouring Sakenhurst Estate. The Blount
family owned most of the eastern half of Mamble, centred on their hall at
Soddington, and land tax returns suggest that their coal works began some time
between 1700-1730. In 1759, Sir Edward Blount was one of three
The first part of the 19th century probably saw Mamble Colliery at its
most prosperous. The Ordnance Survey preliminary drawings of 1817 show 11
shafts, concentrated in three areas and linked to the canal by tramways. This
state of affairs would have lasted until the middle of the century, when the
Shrewsbury & Hereford Railway arrived in Leominster and probably destroyed
Mamble's market with cheaper and better quality coal than it could provide. The
canal, by now very run down, was finally drained in the 1860s and Mamble had to
rely on purely local trade. In 1869, the Blount family abandoned all direct
interest in the mines, leasing them to Thomas Aston, a local coal master. The
Aston family were to run the mines for the next half century and did rather
well from them. Thomas's son, Edward, managed the mines and a farm, as well as
being a District Councillor and JP. Not for nothing was he known as the
"King of Mamble".
Mamble worked throughout the First World War and into the 1920s. Winding
of men and coal was by hand windlass, up shafts about 30 yards in depth.
Underground, a collier worked in conjunction with a loader and youth, who
pushed the tram of coal to the pit bottom. The technology had essentially not
changed in 100 years and would still have been recognisable to the miners 100
years before that. The end was brought about by a dispute over the lease. The
bulk of the Blount estate's mineral rights had been leased by the Bayton Colliery
Company in 1921. Aston was working at the very boundary of his area and
allegedly took coal demised to the Bayton Colliery Company. When this was
brought to light, he abandoned the mine in 1925 and (briefly) worked an
entirely new mine on the adjacent Sakenhurst Estate.
The Bayton Colliery did not sink in the immediate area of Mamble village
until 1934, when New Mamble (Bayton No.5) was opened. This was never very
successful, ironically part due to water seeping out of Aston's flooded
workings. Its closure in 1944 finally brought mining to an end in Mamble
village.
The most westerly part of the site that has significant remains is west
of Whatehall Farm. Significantly, in the 1770s, this provided the name for the
colliery. The Marl Brook cuts a deep valley through here and the ground is very
disturbed with the indistinct remains of old spoil tips. A public footpath
follows part of the line of the tramway built in the 1790s to reach the canal
terminus at Sousnett, about ( mile away. In fact the tramway line appears
intact all the way to the canal basin, where the impressive Wharf House fronts
onto a stretch of canal turned into fishponds.
Returning to the colliery and proceeding eastwards, the Marl Brook opens
out into an extensive flat area, the site of many shafts marked by the Ordnance
Survey in 1817. The 1903 OS map showed three of these still open, just to the
north of the brook, and one had an intriguingly square section. They have been
filled more recently but a collapse has revealed another shaft north of the
brook, whilst flattened spoil tips to the south suggest one or two more shafts.
There are two cottages by the brook and a third on the hill which are probably
contemporary with the colliery. Indeed one called Footrid Cottage proclaims its
age as 1812 with a cast iron plaque. It is the hydraulic engineering which is
the most intriguing feature of this part of the site. Marl Brook is carried
underneath a causeway at the eastern end of the area in a brick culvert about
36" high and 28" wide, originally some 70 yards in length. A curved
culvert of similar length but approximately cylindrical in section (now
40" high by 44" wide) carries it to the cottages. A shorter culvert
is behind the cottages, and two more much shorter structures act as bridges
further down, one carrying the tramroad over the brook. These structures must
have taken some effort to build but their purpose is unclear. At the start of
the 19th century, this was a key area in the mine as it was the point where the
various feeder tramways converged onto the main line to the canal. One
possibility is that the culverts were built to drain and protect this area from
flash flooding of the Mark Brook.
The name of Footrid given to one of the cottages here indicates that
this was also the approximate site of the drainage adits for the mines. Of
course, the culverts may be connected with this but the most likely site for an
adit is several hundred yards further west, in the deep brook valley. On the
south side of the brook there is a strong feeder of ochre-impregnated water.
There is no trace of any tunnel but this may simply reflect collapse of the
original portal. The site may also have other adits but these are even less
obvious.
In the early 19th century, workings extended in a broad north-south band
beyond the immediate valley of the Marl Brook. Nothing of these is now obvious,
as the land has either been reclaimed for agriculture or covered with trees.
However, the wooded area appears to have suffered from considerable subsidence
and a number of large pools have been created in it. From at least the 1830s,
this area was also the site of a brickworks with associated clay pits. The
route of the tramway apparently climbed away from the Marl Brook to intersect a
smaller stream which eventually flows north into Bayton Brook. In the pasture
land here, there are again impressive remains of grassed-over spoil tips. At
the western end, where the tips probably date from the 1830s, they are
typically 4-6ft high, forming a circle perhaps 20 yards in diameter around the
shaft depression. In the centre of the site, developed in the 1870s and 1880s,
they can be up to 10-12ft high and 40 yards in diameter, with the shaft
depression at one end. At the eastern end, the 20th century workings have left
flattened mounds extending over perhaps 50 x 30 yards, with no trace of the
shafts.
Perhaps the most interesting features at this end of the site are the
remains of the tramway. There is a prominent embankment, up to 6ft high and 6ft
wide, running through a wooded area and then branching into two on entering a
field. These branches run to old shafts, with the southern branch dividing
again. It is possible to identify short, curved embankments leading from
individual shafts to the main lines. One branch of the tramway ends at a shaft
which was shown as active on the 1883 OS map, suggesting that the system long
outlived the canal to which it was originally connected. In some cases, a
tramway leading from a shaft was used for tipping spoil. A basically circular
spoil tip has a short northwards extension associated with a tramway
embankment. There are also two linear spoiltips. These have depressions in the
centre marking the sites of shafts but the spoil has obviously been trammed
away along just the one axis.
There are a number of fragments of plate rail to be found on the site,
usually associated with the spoil tips. Until a few months ago, a 4'6"
section was still embedded in one of the linear mounds. The rails are of two
types with flange x bed measurements of either 2" x 3" or 1" x
3". They have holes at either end for fastening to sleepers.