Hello again Sarah,
Your course notes say that Shallcross Hall Pit has now been replaced by housing; I can’t be absolutely certain but I do not think any houses were built on the actual footprint of the colliery.
The entrance was capped with a large slab of concrete and is now a children’s playground.
The houses are known locally as Flanders but that need not concern you but someone local may take me up and commence a new discussion on that area.
I have read the report of the accident at The Walker Pit in your papers and some of the information is attributed to William Eyre. Bill was our most knowledgeable historian and really what he said about this village is always accepted as good and accurate. I certainly would not want to argue against anything Bill said but as for the tip collapsing well I don’t know.
I have a picture of the aftermath of the disaster and there is not much to see really but it does not look to me as though an embankment has collapsed rather more as though a digging has caved in. The picture is repeated in a series of postcards about the area with the following text:
“A typical disaster scene, a type of card collected in the early part of the century. It records the tragedy at a coal pit referred to as The Walker Pit, where three men lost their lives on 12th October 1905. The men who died, when the disused pit, near Long Hill Road, was being inspected by John Walker prior to its possible reopening, were 53 years old Richard Walker, his 19 year old son Samuel Moseley Walker and Harry Wooley aged 18. All three came from Bings Knowle. A John Walker (presumably the inspector) was buried to his waste in debris. The Walker Pit (Whaley and Horwich Tunnel), was an 18 inch mine approached by tunnel. It had an underground roadway through which pony-drawn trucks delivered coal to the Botany Bleach Works. The pit also supplied coal direct to the Gunpowder Works and Meveril Springs Works”
You can make of that what you want.
Incidentally the owner of Botany Bleach Works, Colonel Hall lived in a large Manor House (since demolished ‘thank you council’) called Shallcross Hall it looked down on both Botany and Shallcross Hall Pit.. Just in front of the Hall is an air shaft from the main pit and at one time rumour has it (and it’s a pretty well founded rumour) that a factory in a neighbouring village used that air shaft to dispose of some very hazardous waste products. I don’t know if they needed Planning Permission in those days to do such a thing but if they did it’s once again thank to the council.
Where that hazardous material ended up is again anybody’s guess.
Nowadays to build on the land occupied by The Walker Pit would involve a quite large piling operation and the stretch of road where you would need to enter and exit the site has been the subject of a lot of discussion about speeding vehicles so you might encounter problems with the Highways Department and the blanket tree preservation order might also be difficult to overcome.
Hope this has been of assistance to you Sarah and good luck with your project.
R. S-S
R. Stephenson-Smythe wrote:Hello Sarah,
I will try to give you some information about The Walker Pit but will do it a bit piecemeal.
Firstly you have identified the correct position of The Walker Pit: it is to the right hand side of Buxton Road in Whaley Bridge just before the track down to Taxal Bridge. It has been known locally for many years as The Botany Tip. The bleach works you referred to is on the other side of the river but entirely downstream from The Walker Pit so no bleaching operations carried out at Botany could possibly have had any polluting affects on the Pit. To my knowledge there are and never have been any lead pipes from the Botany to the Pit; but more of that later.
If you have visited the Whaley Bridge website you will be greeted by the following statement:
“WHALEY BRIDGE is an attractive small town in the High Peak. We call ourselves the Gateway to the Goyt Valley, the area of outstanding natural beauty which is a magnet for walkers, tourists and those seeking adventure.”
You will see our local council is also on the front page of the site and I presume it and by association its councillors endorse that statement.
The Goyt Valley is indeed a beautiful place but at times it has catered for industry such as mining and factories. These are now all gone.
Botany Bleach Works or the company that was sited there Edward Hall Ltd leased several parcels of land in the Goyt Valley in order that they could carry out their business more effectively and I note from my records that one such piece of land is that which was The Walker Pit. It was part of a 99 year lease from 25th March 1908. Now it just so happens that another piece of land known locally as Taxal Duckpond was leased by Botany at the same time and for the same number of years. This beautiful piece of land was somehow acquired by one of our Councillors, Mr Swift and the circumstances of how have not come to light. But it is a distinct possibility that the good Councillor also managed to acquire The Walker Pit land at the same time. You would need to contact the Town Clerk to find out if she knows anything about this matter.
There are indeed lead pipes going from Botany Works but as I say not to the Walker Pit and I would not wish to divulge anything about their whereabouts as we have only just recently managed to clean up the Goyt Valley which was becoming a scrap yard. So I think you would be safe in disregarding the possibility of lead pollution on the site.
Just what is in that area is anyone’s guess though? Although it was known as The Botany Tip, Edward Hall produced little in the way of waste, that is apart from the millions of gallons of acid and caustic effluent that was discharged directly into the river, but as I say that is downstream from your project and again you need not concern yourself with that. The only other waste items were the sacking and steel bands that wrapped the raw cotton bales. Both of these items were salvaged and sold.
The only other item that could have gone to the tip was ash from the boilers and that would tie in with the disaster that occurred there on the 12th October, 2005 but more of that later.
That’s all for now but I’ll dig some more out for you later on today.
R. S-S
