GRIFFYDAM HISTORY

It is recorded that a colliery was being worked in Newbold in 1835. Evidence suggests that this colliery was in fact named “Cylinder Pit” which is the name appended to the shaft information. Two shafts were sunk which were 1.5 metres diameter and 70.5 metres deep. Because of the severe water problems in that area, it is more likely that one of them was a pumping shaft. They were approximately 10 metres apart and are marked A on the map below. They are approx 360 metres from School Lane following the field boundary line and approx 207 metres in from the Rempstone Road in a direct line.

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Benjamin Walker owned a farm at Newbold which is presumed to be Newbold Farm, on the basis that the surrounding field on which the shafts were sunk, were part of the farm at that time. The farm is shown on the 1884 O/S map on the next page. It can be assumed that Benjamin worked the Colliery based on the statement below. The colliery was of course adjacent to the Coleorton Railway. Although we do not know the exact dates during which the colliery was in operation, from the following statement, it was clearly being worked by 1827, and abandonment records suggest that it would probably have closed in the mid 1850s. Benjamin Walker had developed various mining interests by this time, and is mentioned earlier under articles on collieries in the area of “The Smoile” at Lount.

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Further evidence of the survival of the industry, is provided by a survey of the Beaumont estates by Edward Knight shortly after the death of Sir George Howland Beaumont 7th Baronet in 1827. This showed that Benjamin Walker’s farm at Newbold was in a reasonable state apart from the condition of the fields and fencing around his colliery which suffered from the “unruly conduct of the people at the coal pits”.

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Trade Directories of 1846 and 1861 list Benjamin Walker (b.1785 in Coleorton) as a coal master and farmer and living at “White House Hall Farm”, Coleorton. This is confirmed in the 1841 /1851 census also. He had a large family with him (wife and 7 daughters), and had clearly moved from Newbold Farm by this time. Six of his daughters were born in Worthington, and one in Coleorton. His wife was born in 1791 in Worthington.

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