Living Easton
Mining History Index
History Index
Living Easton Home Page
Site Contents
| |
Living Easton |
Mining History Index |
Easton Pit covered a surface area of some five acres. Areas 'on top' included:
5 'Lancashire' boilers - each with double furnaces.
2 vertical engines of 150 nominal horse power to operate cages in the mine. The wheels above the pit were 11 feet 3 inches in diameter.
- A 20 horse-power nominal horizontal steam engine. The engine, made by Bush of Bristol, pumped about 40 gallons of water at every stroke - the water going into the local sewer system. It worked 12 out of every 24 hours.
25 feet in diameter and drove about 30,000 feet of air/minute through the mine. It worked continually except for a few hours on a Saturday evening or Sunday.
An 'old fashioned steam engine' was used on the surface to haul trams, up to 8 at a time, up some of the steep underground inclines.
Men used circular saws to cut timber for propping up the roofs and walls. Sawdust was used as bedding for the horses underground. Waste timber was used as firewood, old timber brought from underground is sawn and chopped, put into bundles and sold by girls who hawked them in baskets from door to door. The stock of timber on the surface was 'enormous' and the quantity used 'almost incredible'. The timber came chiefly from Bordeaux but also from Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Monmouth and Gloucestershire. The purchase of timber was an important aspect of the mine's operation.
One hundredweight wicker baskets were fitted out very much like a sleigh with a 'smooth semi-circular steel arrangement'.
The smithies attended to the steam engines which were many, above and below ground. They looked after the 20-30 miles of underground tram rails. This involved 'curving' a frequent operation. The smithies also made and sharpened miners tools as well as making the cages and ironwork for the underground doors, etc.
About 11 feet in diameter and 1,080 feet deep. Coal arrived at the surface in two laden trams (each containing nine hundredweight of coal) which are met by two men who unload and quickly replaced with two empty trams. The two full trams were weighed at the weighbridge - the miners were paid on piecework and their output was recorded by their number which they put on the side of the trams. After weighing the coal was taken and tipped down a bank near Coalpit Lane ready for collection and distribution to customers in Bristol and Clifton. Especially in winter, the lines of carts for the collection of coal would be long indeed. Two men had the job of weighing out the small quantities of coal for retail sale on the site. Local grocers and shopkeepers used to hire out, at a charge of a halfpenny an hour, small hand wagons in which local people could carry their coal.