Wigan Album

I remember it well, Terry.
Before they demolished everything I went round and took video footage of the baths, canteen, workshops and winding house.
I wonder who got the 1901 datestone.

The shaft for the south pit is now underneath someones back garden!

Winder. I attempted to find out when the Victoria mine was sunk, and also when it was closed down. There is not much shown on Google,relating to this colliey, that I can find. I know my father in Law was a collier there in the 40s, and 50s. I worked at the Maypole, at the end of the 40s, and into the early 50s,and I haven't much knowledge of the Victoria pit. It is interesting to learn the history of these industrial giants'.

Albert, the colliery was opened by the Wigan Coal and Iron Co in 1901. The first wagon of coal being dispatched 2nd Feb that year. The pit had its own internal railway system, the empty wagons coming in from the main line, to be shunted past the two shafts and up the incline, where they were stored until they were needed. The wagons were then lowered to the screens by gravity, filled and then push into a siding.
Victoria pit finally closed in 1958, but the pit buildings were used by a number of small firms until demolition in the early 90s.
The site is now a small housing estate.

Winder, any chance of posting your videos of Victoria colliery on here?

Tuddy, it's only about 5 minutes of footage that I managed to get. I hired the camera from a shop in Wigan, it was my first attempt at vidoeing so it's a bit shaky.

I'll see if I can find it and find out how to put it on you tube.
Don't hold your breath.

Winder. Thank you for your very detailed comments relative to the Victoria Colliery. It goes a long way, in enhancing in words, the historical shown photograph.

I worked at the Vic from 1951 to approximately 1955.I was a driller on the so named mountain mine.The seam was split into two faces one maybe 250yds and the other one about 100yds.The seam was 18 inches high and sometimes slightly lower.Other drillers working on this face were K.Wilson, Matt Shephard, A Sedgewick. Those three worked on the longer face. I worked with B Penman on the shorter face.To drill a hole you had to lie on your side and lean slightly backwards and push the drill with your knee to drill a 5 foot deep hole.Each shift a driller works there comes a time when he and his mate are on their own because we work split shifts.One particular shift it seemed that the roof on our face was making a much louder noise than normal causing the timber supports to make uncomfortable sounds. We finally finished our shifts and went home.That night in Wigan i met a workmate who worked the afternoon shift and he told me the face roof had weightened to 6 inches along its full lenght.Losing that face was a major factor in Victoria colliery closing.

John. Did you know a collier named William Ashcroft?

Went down there the day after the demolition. Salvaged a couple of bricks, one of which is white glazed from the 'winding floor' wall. Despite a thorough search, there was no sign of the date stone - though it could have been buried - the pile of bricks was huge.

I knew Billy Ashcroft very well,he was a professional boxer, i also worked with him underground we both were transferred to Chisnall hall colliery when the Vic closed

Thank you John. The Billy you refer to is my brother in law. The William Ashcroft I made mention of, was his father. He was, in the early fifties, a collier at the Victoria pit. Sadly he had passed away before I became a future family member.

i worked at vic washing the slag heaps to remove the coal at that time a lot of the slag heaps were on fire before we started there was a company involved in removing red shale a product of burned out slag heaps

Albert, the pit stopped winding coal on 13 June 1958 and was abandoned on 13 May 1959. Some demolition took place and the shafts were filled up, but many buildings were put to other uses by several companies. The engine house became home to a tarmac plant for a while under Allen Bros. ownership.

Nev. Thank you for the extra bits of info. Is it a large housing development that has arisen after the closure of the colliery? I expect the houses are well away from where the shafts where situated.

There are a couple of houses on what is now Lordy Close that don't look too far away from where the south shaft was at all in relation to the railway lines. Scary.