From early days wood remained the principal fuel for household consumption and in its partly burnt state of charcoal the primary source for smelting metals. However, timber was reducing in availability. Following the introduction of machines, coal a material previously available from shallow pits and surface outcrops became an essential commodity and its widespread presence allowed Briton to create and foster the Industrial Revolution. Today, coal may have become less fashionable, but it remains the nation’s largest single, long term, source of energy.
Prior to the advent of railways, Cumberland’s atrocious haphazard network of roads was economically incapable of transporting a heavy product like coal. Consequently, large scale mining outside the coastal districts of Workington and Whitehaven were almost unheard of, even though rich deposits were known to exist. However, in manors like Aspatria, coal was required for domestic consumption and a degree of activity was encouraged from the latter half of the 17th century.
The earliest account of Coal mining in the Aspatria district occurs in October 1657, when Robert Highmoor and William Haine, applied to the “Rt. Worshipful Mr Potter and the Rest of the Commissioners,” for permission to mine coal within the vicinity of the village of Arkelby, offering to pay a fee of £4 per annum over twenty-one years, should coal be found. Evidence is sparse and one can only assume that the venture met with limited success. However, records for 1681, describe a colliery at Oughterside, belonging to William Orfeur of High close Plumbland; which he bequeathed by will to his son. In 1701, the Duke of Somerset worked two pits to the north of this colliery, close to the river Ellen; production was probably intermittent as records show that the pits were idle in the winter of 1726, and again in 1740. The Aspatria Westmoor colliery, formerly occupied by William Fletcher of Moresby, was leased in 1728 for twenty-one years, to a partnership composed of Joseph Brisco, William Longcake and Robert Kirkhaugh, at an annual rent of £10. In 1753, the royalty from the Oughterside collieries passed by will from the Duke of Somerset to Lord Leconsfield, the Earl of Egremont.
The 19th century accelerated the rise in local production. In 1814, the Westmoor Colliery was leased by Brown, Hodgson and Company, for a period of fourteen years, at an annual rent of £200 plus one shilling and threepence per ton, for every ton raised above 2,400. Although a high percentage of stone interspersed the seams the lease was extended for a further seven years. Then in 1825, two new mines charged with cheaper royalties of four and a half pence and seven pence per ton were opened in competition at Arkelby, and the price plummeted to almost half of its previous value, forcing closure with debts of over £3,000.
In 1825, Joseph Halliday, obtained a licence from Lord Egremont, to bore for coal in the Westmoor district. After three years the concern was sold to John Kirkhaugh, a wine and spirit merchant from Aspatria. Two years later, he leased the colliery for twenty-one years at an annual rent of £20 plus six pence per ton for every ton raised above eight hundred. After several fruitless borings a new shaft was sunk to the yard band at forty-eight fathoms. In the formative years heavy losses were incurred and during the twenty-year period leading up to 1837 the annual output was considerably less than 5,000 tons. In 1842, after the opening of the Carlisle and Maryport railway, output rose sharply to over 11,500 tons. Production was further increased in 1845, when Kirkhaugh began working a Londsdale royalty at Oughterside, the coal being drawn to the surface through the Westmoor shaft. Output from this royalty rose from 7,000 tons in 1846, to 14,500 tons four years later. In 1850, the lease was purchased by the Aspatria Coal Company, a consortium composed of Thomas Westray, Isaac Fletcher and William Bragg. By 1857, the coal reserves were almost exhausted, and the company was forced to relinquish the lease on both pits, although a portion of this royalty was rented by Harris in 1859.
In 1902, a Lonsdale royalty was leased at Oughterside, by Joseph James and Company, later renamed the Oughterside Coal Company Ltd., but it took four years to raise the product. In 1907, the same company leased a Leconsfield royalty and worked both pits in tandem, winning coal in both the Ten Quarters and Yard Band seams. A battery comprising, forty, bye-products Coke ovens was erected close to this pit in 1913.
Throughout the inter war years a series of companies found it extremely difficult to work at a profit in the Oughterside district. In 1920, the Cumberland Power and Chemical Company Ltd. went into voluntary liquidation. Three years later the lease was resumed with limited success by the Oughterside Coal Company Ltd. In 1928, the Oughterside Coal Company (1928) Ltd., paid £10,000 for the right to exploit reserves but all they achieved in a five-year period was to rob the pillars left by the previous owners. Mining resumed in 1936, when the Westmoor Coal Company Ltd., sank a drift mine near Westmoor End, but an influx of water from the old workings halted production two years later. The last attempt to create an economically viable business occurred in 1939, when a Scottish Company sank No 1 and No 2 pits on a Leconsfield royalty between Westmoor End and Prospect. Although three independent seams were worked output was low and coupled with the difficulties associated with attracting skilled labour the venture closed three years later.
To satisfy the needs of the neighbourhood, mining at Gilcrux began in 1740, when the Dykes family of Dovenby Hall exploited seams adjacent to the river Ellen. In 1770, the colliery was taken over by Jackson and Co., who worked the Yard Band, Ten Quarters and Three-Quarter seams at a depth of 8, 16 and 21 fathoms. Although output was never exceptional, four pits were working locally by 1784. These collieries reached their peak production in the mid 1840’s, when 19,000 tons of coal were raised annually. In 1860, John Steel and William Miller, sub-leased the colliery and completed the sinking of Ellen Pit near Bullgill, which continued to win coal until 1910.
In 1936, Maurice and Roland Stobbart successfully mined metal band coal from a drift in the side of a steep wooded bank close to Gilcrux village. Although the Ellen Vale drift, produced over three tons of high-grade coal daily it was never a viable proposition and closed two years later. After a lapse of forty years an Open cast mine was excavated in an area between Gilcrux, Westmoor End and Prospect. A total of six seams were exploited, Upper Slaty, Ten Quarters, Rattler, Bottom Bannock, Thirty Inch and the Metal Band. The lease expired in 1990.
Prior to the construction of the Mealsgate branch railway (aka The Bolton Loop), coal was worked on a limited scale, in the parish of Allhallows. The coal being brought up the shaft in baskets and sold to local consumers. Upwards of eighty carts were known to arrive daily at the pit yard and wait until 9am., the time when coal began to ascend the Pit; many of whom were often disappointed.
In 1874, on a site close to Mealsgate railway station, the Fletcher brothers leased a 490-acre royalty jointly owned by George Moore and Sir Wilfrid Lawson. The shaft was sunk to a depth of 63 fathoms where the coal was 30 inches deep. Two years later Yard Band coal 5ft thick was reached at a depth of 105 fathoms. In 1886, the colliery passed to the Allerdale Coal Company Ltd. who added an additional 220 acres of a Leconsfield royalty. The colliery was costly to work, with the face a considerable distance from the shaft; and at four pence. per ton more costly to move by railway than Brayton coal. In 1902, the same company sank the Brayton Knowe mine at Baggrow, increasing its size in 1913, with an additional 13 acres. Although the final two years were confined to robbing the pillars the colliery continued to produce Yard Band coal until July 6th 1918. In 1920, the United Steel Company, purchased the colliery and increased the annual output by adding 287 acres. In 1924, output reached 60,800 tons, but the success was short lived and within three years the tonnage slipped to 90 per cent of its former value, and closure quickly followed.
In 1951, the National Coal Board approved a scheme proposed by the Palace Coal Company of Glasgow, to extract 10,000 tons of coal annually, from a one-hundred-acre site near Mealsgate village. Unfortunately, the concept was surpassed by a mixture of modern-day inflation and social expectations.
Although the Lawson family accumulated large sums of capital from leasing royalties, they also attempted to make monitory gains by dabbling in practical mining. Between the years 1710, and 1730, Gilfrid Lawson of Brayton, raised between ten and twenty tons of coal daily from a group of pits in Hensingham. While Sir Wilfrid Lawson, lost a great deal of capital attempting to work coal on his own land at Oughterside. In 1753, Caroline and Elizabeth Lawson, leased an adjacent colliery from the Earl of Egremont, then cut a dam on the land, to supply water to their own colliery. In 1788, the colliery was leased by the Bolton Company, at an annual rent of £20 and worked until the lease expired in 1810.
As implied, it was access to the Irish market, made possible by the railway link, which brought about increased production at the inland collieries. The first section of the Maryport to Carlisle railway, from Maryport to Arkelby pits, was opened on July 15th, 1840, and by the following February, Aspatria coal from Kirkhaugh’s new pit was being shipped to Maryport. After the completion of the line, Aspatria held a prime position has its coal could either be shipped to satisfy the Carlisle market or exported from the coast. The promoters of the Maryport and Carlisle Railway were intent on succeeding at the expense of the powerful Lowther family who controlled the outlet at Whitehaven. Prior to the railway, Harris’s coal paid cartage at 9s. per wagon, a measure between 45 and 50 cwts. a figure reduced after 1842, to 4s..
Joseph Harris of Greysouthern began coal mining in the Aspatria district in 1822, when he worked a Yard Band seam on a Lawson royalty at Plumbland. Between 1830 and 1860, he worked both the Yard Band and Thirty Inch seams from No.1, No.3 and Hall pits at the Old Domain Colliery, Oughterside. Coal shipments from this group increased from 1,785 wagons in 1837 to 8,085 wagons in 1840, when the coal was sold at 8s. 2d. per ton. Coal from the same seam was also won by Drewry and Co. (1828) and Thornthwiate (1838), from two respective pits at Arkelby.
In 1850, John Harris, sank the first in his series of Brayton Domain pits on a Lawson royalty; the title being a corruption of the names of the manorial estate and the original mine at Oughterside. In 1864, after discovering a fault that threatened production, Harris sank a second shaft to the east and found coal at a depth of 80 fathoms. Although this No 2 pit was worked for a period more than twenty years little remains to describe its character. The mines were situated a short distance to the south and east of Aspatria railway station, at the foot of the Pringle Lonning; on a site that later housed a Tile Kiln. Transportation was totally dependant upon man and the horse, a team which dragged the product to the siding and branch railway. When Thomas Crossthwaite, a labourer at No 2 pit was accidentally killed in 1868, his job was registered as a horse minder, employed to drag loaded wagons from the mouth of the pit to the railway siding.
Other sinking’s followed: No 3 pit, sunk in 1870, to a depth of 89 fathoms, produced coal until 1902; No 4, sunk to the Yard Band seam at 92 fathoms in 1892; and No 5 the last of this series of mines, sunk in 1910, to the Yard Band seam at 171 fathoms.
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