Northern Pits — Coal mine shaft sinking and winding | northernpits.com
The numbered sinking procedure, from the head drift and the cutting of the first drum through lining, pumping, cabling and hanging to the shaft bottom level — with the equipment used at each stage.
Every shaft began at the surface with the head drift: the shallow first opening that fixed the alignment and gave the sinking crew its working base. Below it, at 90-150 m down, lay the horizon of the rise — the horizontal tunnel that would later hold the winding house, the power plant and the fan house.
Sinking proper went down in drums — short advances of 5-10 m at a time. In 1950s Britain the rate ran 30-60 m a month, so each drum represented days rather than weeks, and the crew worked continuously until the shaft reached its level.
Lining followed the face closely. Concrete rings were cast on the surface and lowered down as the shaft advanced, about a metre of lining for every five to ten metres sunk; after 1950 concrete was replacing the timber and cast-iron segments that older pits still carried.
On narrow screens, swipe or scroll the plate sideways.
Pumping ran alongside everything. Water in the northern coalfield was lifted by steam and then electric pumps — 500-2,000 imperial gallons a minute, or 2,300-9,500 litres, in the larger pits — and a face that outran its pumps simply stopped.
Once the shaft stood at depth came cabling and hanging: the guides, the ropes and the cage, about 1.8 m wide, installed in the clear diameter of 5.5-7.0 m. This equipping phase often took the better part of a year after the last metre was cut.
The job ended at the shaft bottom level, cut at the seam. In a large colliery that could mean 300 m or more below the rise — the point where the sinking crew handed over to the winding crew described in Headgear, Cages and Winding at the Pit Bottom.
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