Thread: Radcliffe Map
View Single Post
  #12  
Old 10-05-2013, 08:20 AM
hollydog's Avatar
hollydog hollydog is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Amble
Posts: 528
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan J. View Post
There was no connection between Broomhill and the old Radcliffe pit, Broomhill had a connection to Newburgh as I have mentioned previously. The Radcliffe shafts were full of water according to my mother who as a girl said they used to go there and be chased away because of the danger. Apparently the shaft was only covered by wooden boarding which was in a rotten state.
By the 50's there was no sign of the shafts and only a solitary building left standing which was of two floors, the upper used by the colliery property maintenance joiners and downstairs by the Radcliffe Body Building Club or RBBC as was painted on the wall next to the door. I was one the ones who trained there. We were all NCB workers who had permission to use the place and most of the weights, apparatus, etc were home made by ourselves. We had electricity from the upstairs and it was a colliery supply of 110 volts, this came from Rose Cottage, nearby, which was colliery property and Matty Archbold, fore shift overman at Hauxley, lived there. The shaft you mention may have been a ventilation shaft at Broomhill somewhere.
The Moorhouse drift apparently did give access to a small area of old Radcliffe workings abandoned in the 1890s and this is where my friends recollections came from. With a good navigator it was then possible to get back to Broomhill! As you stated the two colleries were never linked to be worked together.
Reply With Quote