C O N T E X T 1 0 9 : M A Y 2 0 0 9 31 John Yates The imprint of human energy With a really big project like Chatterley Whitfield Colliery there is pressure to do nothing until you can do everything, but success will come one step at a time. Chatterley Whitfield Colliery in Stoke-on-Trent is an extraordinary historic place. It highlights two major conservation issues.The first is about principle. Should we conserve big industrial sites of outstanding national significance, bearing in mind that large-scale industry is this island’s most influential contribution so far to human history? The second is about process. How do we conserve the significance of a site, when what is unique is its completeness? Chatterley Whitfield colliery is the most complete surviving large colliery from the peak years of the English coal industry – the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It survived because it was already a museum in the 1980s, when its contemporaries and competitors were swept away. A national survey of coal-mining sites under English Heritage’s Monuments Protection Programme showed that this was the best big mine in England. As a result the site and some structures were scheduled as an ancient monument, while the more useable buildings became Grade II* and II listed historic buildings. Situated on the north-eastern edge of Stoke-onTrent, surface outcrops of coal had been worked here on a small scale in the medieval and post-medieval periods, then more systematically mined in the 18th century. By the 1840s the present site had at least three shafts, one with a steam engine. The 1860s saw rapid expansion following railway connection. In 1873 the nearby Chatterley Iron Company bought the mine and deepened one shaft to 440 yards (c400m). The North Staffordshire coalfield was notoriously gassy, and a further shaft was sunk for ventilation following a serious explosion in 1881. Two years later longwall working was introduced – a mining technique that became almost universal in the 20th century. Ownership passed to a separate company in 1891, bringing an innovative management regime that would keep the pit in the forefront of mining technology for several decades. By the early 1900s electricity was well established underground, together with compressed-air coal cutting.Two further shafts were sunk between 1913 and 1917, the deepest to about 700 yards (c630m). By 1932 underground haulage was entirely mechanised – no more pit ponies until the museum years. In 1937 Chatterley Whitfield was the first colliery in England to produce over one million tons in a year. At this time it employed almost 4,000 people. The 1930s also saw much improved workers’ welfare facilities, with a model installation of pit-head baths, canteen and medical centre built under the auspices of the Miners’ Welfare Fund in their art deco style. Nationalisation in 1947 led to a further period of investment above and below ground in the early 1950s, then production slowly declined until closure in 1976. The site reopened as a museum in 1978, backed by the National Coal Board and Stoke-on-Trent City Council. The expectation was that this would be the National Coal Mining Museum. Former miners took visitors underground, into workings drained and ventilated by links to the then still operational Wolstanton colliery across the city. However,Wolstanton closed in 1985, and the museum could not sustain pumping and ventilating costs.Thanks to the then current job-creation schemes, a convincing and comprehensive mock mine was built ChatterleyWhitfield is the most complete surviving large colliery from the peak years of the English coal industry.
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