The Early Local Pits
There were many coal mines on the north side of Manchester;
among these were the Collyhurst pits in the Irk valley. Miles Platting colliery
was on the south-east side of the junction of Oldham Road, and Varley Street.
The first of the Bradford colliery shafts were in the Bradford gas works, not many people know that. Bradford colliery was opened by Royal Charter granted by King James I of England, James the sixth of Scotland. The occasion was when he visited Haughton Towers near Blackburn, as a guest of Lady de Haughton.
Bradford colliery itself was 350 years old when they eventually closed it down. Strangely
Bradford colliery was “the way to the stars”. Opened when the canals first started and finished when man set foot on the moon.
The Duke of Bridgewater coal mines were extensive in the Worsely area. His problem was that he could not get his coal into Manchester in the winter and had to sell his coal at summer prices to local cotton mills.
Bridgewater and his estate engineers employed a millers son
James Brindley to drain the extensive lands around Chat Moss, to create farmland.
Between them they devised a scheme to get coal into Manchester by canal, with
the coal yard next to the Roman fort at Castlefield, hence the Bridgewater canal,
the beginning of opening up the country to coal, cotton, iron ore and food.
