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Stations, Junctions, etc
Engine Sheds
Other
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Haunchwood Collieries
The Haunchwood Colliery Company was formed in 1881 and
encompassed two pits, both of which were adjacent to the Midland Railway
Nuneaton to Birmingham Line. Haunchwood pit was approximately one mile west
from Nuneaton station, it opened in 1881 and closed in 1914 whilst Tunnel pit
was three quarters of a mile further west adjacent to the Midland Railway's
Haunchwood Tunnel. This pit opened in 1894 and was absorbed into the NCB in
January 1947. These collieries mined fine steam coal which was in demand from
industrial users over a wide area. It also supplied coal to electricity
generators in Birmingham, Northampton and the Metropolitan Railway at Neasden.
The board of directors included a number of the Hickman family who owned steel
works at Bilston in the Midlands.
Robert Ferris
Peter Lee wrote in the Coventry Evening
Telegraph on 16th January 1999 the following article:
Haunchwood (Nowells) Colliery was one of the oldest pit
workings in Warwickshire, and records indicate it was producing coal in 1729.
Throughout its early history there are notes of leases, and by 1801 the
collection of individual pits making up the colliery were reckoned to be
producing between 200 and 300 tons each week. By this time the pit had
developed a railroad of sorts, with waggons hauled by horses down to the wharf
on the Coventry Canal. My first record of ownership goes back to about 1820
when Peter Unger Williams, born in Devon but practising as a lawyer in the City
of London, became coalmaster. How a London lawyer came to be managing a
Warwickshire coal mine I have no idea. Especially one who married Caroline
Brown (nee St Barbe), a lady of some standing.
The St Barbe's were a noble family descended from European
royalty! Nevertheless it was a good marriage, and as owners of Haunchwood
Colliery, brick and tile makers and farmers of 36 acres in Stockingford, they
made their home at Haunchwood House. After the death of Peter in 1837 the pit
was variously managed by his wife Caroline, and his son John McTaggart
Williams. Caroline also managed Charity Colliery in Bedworth, which the family
ran until 1858. After the Williams family relinquished control of Haunchwood
pit its ownership passed to John Nowell in the early 1850s. The Nowells came
from Wednesbury in Staffordshire and they continued to have a connection with
the colliery for the next 70 years. The early horse-drawn railroad was in
service until the Nuneaton to Whitacre Junction branch of the Midland Railway
came into use. A new branch line was laid to the new main line, and it became
known as The Haunchwood Brick and Tile Company's Siding.
The title came about because the colliery shared a track
with the adjacent brickworks. The signal cabin at the junction was known as
Nowell's Siding. There are no records revealing how the new branch worked, but
almost surely the colliery company purchased an old second-hand steam tank
engine from one of the principle railway companies which generally speaking had
plenty of surplus stock around at that time. John Nowell passed the colliery
onto his son William who died in November 1873 at the age of 47. In turn he
left it to his son also known as William. In the 1880s the company, now with
the name John Nowell and Son, failed because of the prevailing climate in
trade. Another Staffordshire man, Sir Alfred Hickman the great coal owner and
industrialist took over, and from that day forward Haunchwood Collieries
Limited made great progress. Another pit was sunk at Stockingford known as the
Tunnel Pit which started to mine coal in 1891.
Certainly from those days the railway to the colliery was
worked by steam engine, and a precious but fragile photo exists of an old long
funnelled steamer outside the loco shed. The trackage is roughly laid and dumb
buffered wagons of a crude type lie around the yard complete, with sprags of
wood which were lobbed under the wheels to stop them from rolling. By the turn
of the century the previous branch line, which had been laid through the brick
stock yard, had become so congested with clayware traffic that a new line had
to be built to the outside of the site. A total of four engines appear to have
worked Nowells Colliery. Details of numbers one and two are sketchy, but we do
know about number three which was built by Hawthorne Leslie in 1901 and sold in
1925 to Measham Collieries on closure of the colliery. And number four, named
Haunchwood, built by Andrew Barclays of Kilmarnock in 1911, was transferred to
Haunchwood Tunnel Pit in 1925.
On July 7, 1925 Nowells Colliery ceased coal winding and
two submersible pumps were fitted down the shafts. These were used to keep the
Tunnel Pit's seams free of water. They were retained until the colliery closed
on March 25, 1967. Coal for these was delivered at first by a trip engine
working down the branch. Then after 1941 heavy goods road vehicles were used.
Between 1925 and 1941 an agreement was reached whereby the adjacent brickworks
engine was used to deliver the wagons of coal. When the brickworks closed all
the track was lifted including the truncated remains of the Nowells Colliery
branch.
Locomotives seen at Haunchwood Colliery
Haunchwood Colliery Wagon
Ordnance Survey Maps of Haunchwood Colliery

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