Chatterley Whitfield: lamp house (9)

Summary

Colliery lamp house (9) of 1920-22, with minor mid-C20 and late-C20 alterations.

Reasons for Designation

The former lamp house of 1922 at Chatterley Whitfield Colliery is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Historic interest: as a large-scale early-C20 lamp house built to serve a colliery workforce of more than 3,000 men;
* Group value: it has a visual relationship with the Grade II listed office and laboratory building, fitters' shop, and is a component of the country's best surviving colliery from the industry's period of peak production;
* Rarity: a rare survival nationally which, despite the loss of most of the charging equipment, survives substantially intact.

History

The coal seams in the Chatterley Whitfield area may have been worked from the medieval period but large-scale extraction began in the C19, particularly following the opening of the Biddulph Valley Railway line in the 1860s and the formation of Chatterley Whitfield Collieries Ltd in 1891. By the early C20 the mine workings were focussed around four shafts – known as the Engine Pit, Middle Pit, Institute Pit and Platt Pit. The 1910s saw significant investment including the construction of the new Winstanley shaft in 1913-15, which superseded the adjacent Engine Pit and served the workings of the Middle Pit. Soon after another new shaft was dug, the Hesketh Shaft constructed 1914-1917. This was designed to serve the much deeper coal seams below those worked by the other shafts. Following a contraction in production during the labour unrest of the 1920s and the Depression of the 1930s, there was renewed investment in the site including the mechanisation of underground haulage and the construction of new office accommodation and a pithead baths complex. In 1937 the colliery became the first to extract over one million tonnes of coal in a year.

Following the nationalisation of the coal industry in 1947 there was further investment, most notably the introduction of mine cars and locomotive haulage in 1952, which included the construction of a surface mine car circuit to allow the circulation of tubs from the pithead to the washery and back again. From the 1960s production at the site fell and in the 1970s it was decided to work the remaining coal from Wolstanton Colliery. Production ceased in 1976 and the site opened as a mining museum in 1979. This ensured the survival of the buildings, but the museum closed due to financial difficulties in 1993 and the site has been unused since then.

Electric miners' lamps were gradually introduced to collieries from the early C20, as they were not only safer but also offered higher levels of luminosity than had previously been possible with flame safety lamps. In 1914, a South Wales Miners’ Federation conference resolved 'that we press for the general use of electric lamps in mines'. The lamp house (9) at Chatterley Whitfield was constructed in 1920-22 and was where miners collected and returned their lamps and riding checks or tallies at the start and end of each shift. It provided facilities for charging and cleaning electric hand lamps, as well as oil safety lamps which continued to be used for detecting and measuring gas after their use for lighting became obsolete. Electric hand lamps were replaced with cap lamps from 1945. During the late C20 the lamp house was used as a reception area by the museum, but is now (2013) vacant.

Details

Colliery lamp house (9) of 1920-22, with minor mid-C20 and late-C20 alterations.

MATERIALS: a steel frame encased in brick, with stepped brickwork and copings to the gables. The roofs are asymmetrically-pitched, and have full glazing to the north-facing roof slopes and corrugated asbestos sheeting to the south-facing slopes. There are brick stacks at south-west corner and to the rear elevation.

PLAN: rectangular on plan with four single-storey parallel ranges, with later single-storey lean-tos or covered ways to the side (west and east) elevations.

EXTERIOR: the front elevation (north) comprises five bays with a shallow parapet, possibly stone. The five four-light windows have metal frames and are multi paned with concrete lintels and are set within a recessed brick panel. The west elevation has windows with metal frames and an entrance with a pair of double doors. A steel telegraph pole is fixed to the wall. There are the remains of an open-sided lean-to running the length of this elevation; the remnants of its roof supported on cast-iron columns. Towards its north end is a turnstile set into a curving brick wall. A similar arrangement of window and door openings is replicated to the east elevation, though there is a second doorway at the south end. A notice of 1964 providing man riding times in the shafts is fixed to the wall. The covered way or lean-to on this side has a part-felted and part-glazed roof which is supported by brick piers and infill panels. At the north end is a turnstile. The rear elevation has a doorway towards the right-hand end, with two windows to the left of this and a single window to the right, all set within a recessed brick panel. There is a shallow parapet above.

INTERIOR: the entrance doors open onto a large room that has a brick floor and is sub-divided by metal railings. Three of the charging stands survive, containing cap lamps and batteries. The south-east corner is divided from the rest by low brick walls and continuous glazing above; its roof is a concrete deck supported on a frame of steel beams. An internal structure of brick walls and a concrete roof occupies the northern part of the building and during the late C20 served as the museum ticket office and shop. At the opposite (south) end of the building are the toilets, a cleaner's cupboard, a heated office - formerly the lamp room manager's office, and a heated mess room. The roof comprises lightweight metal trusses and steel angle purlins, with steel uprights supporting the valley beams.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

441341

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Websites
Wales Online, accessed from http://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/nostalgia/welsh-history-month-miners-lamp-3565590
The History of Mining, Cape Breton Miners' Museum, accessed from http://www.minersmuseum.com/hof_equipment_1.htm

Other
Chatterley Whitfield Condition Survey, Condition Report, WS Atkins Consultants Ltd, 2001,

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