Mines on the moors
 

I have just been wandering through www.www.webbaviation.co.uk
There is a srction on Accrington;
Here are a couple of photographs of an abandond mine on top of Moleside.
One is noted, the other one is in a photograph where the pilot/photographer says he was looking for evidence of where the PALS trained prior to WWII.
Could annyone enlighten me, I lived in accrington for 23 years, and heard nothing about these mines

Re: Mines on the moors
 

aerial photographs of Accrington Lancashire UK

Your link didn't work so I found it

Re: Mines on the moors
 

Interesting.:)

Where is Moleside? can someone Flash earth me the location?

I will go and have a closer look sometime.

Re: Mines on the moors
 

top of coppice t'other side of bypass. Slate pitts farm is below it.

Re: Mines on the moors
 

Can you centre it on flash earth.:)

I have put it on the coppice lodges at present.

Flash Earth ...satellite and aerial imagery of the Earth in Flash

Re: Mines on the moors
 

Yea sure this is roughly in the middle if you want me to centre where the photo was took i will do :D.

If you do go up there myt be some cows on the hill :).

Flash Earth ...satellite and aerial imagery of the Earth in Flash

Re: Mines on the moors
 

Lance they are the trenches on top of the coppice the mines in question are actually quarrys i belive.

Re: Mines on the moors
 

No thats good, nice one.

Thats what I was thinking Quarry, not mine, although you would be supprised how much mining activity there was round this area many years ago.

Re: Mines on the moors
 

Surely he is wrong as the Late Bill Turner or other local historians would have Known abouth this and why would they train in a mine.

They deffo trained on the trenches as they dug them out themselfs.

Re: Mines on the moors
 

If its the second pic on top row you're meaning - that is on Moleside yes but its on the side that faces down to the Hapton Inn pub and the Burnley - Acc road - they are old quarry workings not mines

Re: Mines on the moors
 

Mickmc you seem to know a lot about Hambledon is that that the ridges you can see from hapton.

Re: Mines on the moors
 

See the book 'Coal Mines around Accrington & District' by Jack Nadin, published 1999. Accrington Local studies library have a copy. It is probably still available nfrom Northern Mines Research Society Accrington chap Harry Tootle will be able to assist further. He wrote the book on Moorfield Pit Disaster.

Re: Mines on the moors
 

Nice walking up there !!

Yes those are the ridges

Re: Mines on the moors
 

The modern use of mines fI think is for quarries, No one seems to quarry anymore, they open cast mine.
I think the term was coined by our American cousins.

Re: Mines on the moors
 

glad i stumbled upon this thread, i also wondered where moleside was so did a search and found a nice little walk called the hambledon hill loop, me thinks i will be making that treck sometime in the near future, isnt it surprising whats on your doorstep, and you dont even know about it :confused:

Re: Mines on the moors
 

There are loads of wonderful walks all around us

Re: Mines on the moors
 

As a teenager I collected bags of coal from the mine site. There was a very definite area of pit-head spoil. There was also the extraction of oil baring shale from this site.
Higher up than the mine site on Moleside Moor itself are a number of smallish circular pits which are either very marshy or filled with water. As far as I am aware local historians have never come to a conclusions as to what they are even though I believe one was once excavated. I recall reading that there were references to mining in the area in Elizabethan times.
If you walk higher up again to the base of Hamledon Hill, just the other side of the field that is beyond the Kings Highway, is a very large and quite obvious mining spoil heap.

Re: Mines on the moors
 

Look, you can't go wrong (however I was last there in 2007): take the Kings Highway from Huncoat and walk up the hill which is quite steep from Burnley Road. Keep going and as you reach the top on your left there is lots of modern workings presumably for the Huncoat brick works. Keep walking up the well defined straight road with 3 to 5 ' banks on either side. The banks will become smaller and the clay road fairly straight. Eventually on your left set back from the road in some fields is a farm which by now may be a tip of old machines and trucks. Keep going up the well defined road (you must pass through a gate and you will be on the mores proper. There is no fence on the right but a wall on the left and the walking becomes a bit of an upward climb. After a while the track descends into a sort of dogleg curve and if you look you should see a style in the wall to your left. Follow the footpath over the style and keep going until you reach a wall which delineates the farmer's field from the moor of Hamildon Hill. In the farmer's field you will see the low ruins of an old farm. Go to the wall and look over it to the expanse of boggy ground which is the base of Hamildon hill. Use your eyes and you will see a large mound which is the spoil heap of an very old coal pit.

Re: Mines on the moors
 

you are arguing over a 6 year old post, however the last two posts are yours so are you arguing with yourself ?

Re: Mines on the moors
 

Hi,
I am not arguing but trying to help people find the mine site.

Re: Mines on the moors
 

I often find discussions with myself lead to less friction.;)

Re: Mines on the moors
 

But the last post was 2007, the people involved in the thread have long since moved on to other threads.

Re: Mines on the moors
 

Not another one about the Pals digging trenches on the Coppice, the PALS NEVER dug any trenches on the coppice, they were only seen once practicing trench digging on Moleside, all evidence of which is gone. Those ditches on the Coppice that some keep going on about were dug in 1939, when the panic of a German invasion by gliders was going round, if you look on that guggle urth thingy you can see the outine of 27 ditches. It was not just Accrington, similar ditches were dug all over the country during the early WW 2 years, they shut our school, for a week, put gas detectors up in the streets, they were stiil repainting them every 3 months in 1943, we were all issued with identity cards and gas masks, & woe betide you if a copper saw you without your cardboard box on a string, then they spent a lot of money on air raid shelters & pill boxes, which were only ever used to store bonfire wood.
Incidentally you quote the PALS trained prior to WWII.
What Pals would that be then
Just seen the comments about the age of the first post, missed it first time round.

Re: Mines on the moors
 

Shushhhhhhh Dave you'll wake him up:rolleyes:

Re: Mines on the moors
 

Moleside had "open cast mining" ie. the coal was near the surface,no deep shafts.