Keith Turton's Private Owner wagon's in Warwickshire

Photograph Reference: Misc_kt350

Ansley Hall Colliery

The colliery was located at the end of a 2½ mile steeply graded mineral branch running from Stockingford station on the Midland Railway line from Water Orton to Nuneaton. A curious feature was that the branch ran right past the colliery and continued for about half a mile to a dead end. Trains serving the colliery had to reverse in and out of the sidings, with no attempt to provide a direct inlet from the time the colliery opened in 1878 till its closure in 1959. One essential feature for the veteran locomotives that worked it was good brakes! For many years the colliery and the nearby Ansley Hall were owned by the Phillips family, one of whose descendants was the first husband of Princess Anne. The origin of the accompanying mage is unknown but the lettering is interesting in that it includes the words 'Nuneaton Colliery', a separate mine near Stockingford itself and connected to the sidings at that station.

Keith Turton

back