Summary

Former electrical & mechanical fitters' shop (15) of c.1935; altered in the later C20 to a mining car repair shop.

Description

Former electrical & mechanical fitters' shop (15) of circa 1935; altered in the later C20 to a mining-car repair shop.

MATERIALS: steel framed with single-skin infill panels of brick; the framework expressed externally as a rectangular grid pattern. The west gable end has been sheeted over with profiled metal cladding. The steel truss roof is clad with asbestos cement sheeting incorporating strip patent glazing roof lights, and there are ridge ventilation cowls.

PLAN: three linked parallel ranges orientated roughly west-east, with the south (rear) range extending only part of the length of the rest of the building. Each range is a single bay wide.

EXTERIOR: the north elevation of seventeen bays has windows with metal frames at two levels in the lower part of the wall, several of which have been bricked up. The upper part of the elevation lacks openings. There is a large entrance with double doors to the right-hand (west) end, and two smaller doorways towards the centre and east end respectively. The pattern of two rows of windows is replicated to the gabled east elevation, with large sliding doors to the central and left-hand bays; the latter serving rail access into the building. The rear (south) elevation also has the same arrangement of window openings with a wide entrance towards the western end. There is a similar opening, with sliding doors, in the west gable end of the south range. Although the west elevation has been clad in corrugated sheeting, the former window openings are visible within the building. There are a number of steel access ladders, walkways, handrails, pipework and a vertical flue stack fixed to the outside of the building.

INTERIOR: the outer ranges have overhead travelling crane gantries and supporting stanchions, and there are narrow and standard gauge rails set in the floor through much of the building. A number of internal structures have been built within the fitters' shop; those in blockwork being the most recent additions. The building still contains some machinery including a diesel generator, a saw bench, a gantry for a chain hoist and other plant equipment.

History

The coal seams in the Chatterley Whitfield area may have been worked from the medieval period but large-scale extraction began in the C19, particularly following the opening of the Biddulph Valley Railway line in the 1860s and the formation of Chatterley Whitfield Collieries Ltd in 1891. By the early C20 the mine workings were focussed around four shafts – known as the Engine Pit, Middle Pit, Institute Pit and Platt Pit. The 1910s saw significant investment including the construction of the new Winstanley shaft in 1913-15, which superseded the adjacent Engine Pit and served the workings of the Middle Pit. Soon after another new shaft was dug, the Hesketh Shaft constructed 1914-1917. This was designed to serve the much deeper coal seams below those worked by the other shafts. Following a contraction in production during the labour unrest of the 1920s and the Depression of the 1930s, there was renewed investment in the site including the mechanisation of underground haulage and the construction of new office accommodation and a pithead baths complex. In 1937 the colliery became the first to extract over one million tonnes of coal in a year.

Following the nationalisation of the coal industry in 1947 there was further investment, most notably the introduction of mine cars and locomotive haulage in 1952, which included the construction of a surface mine car circuit to allow the circulation of tubs from the pithead to the washery and back again. From the 1960s production at the site fell and in the 1970s it was decided to work the remaining coal from Wolstanton Colliery. Production ceased in 1976 and the site opened as a mining museum in 1979. This ensured the survival of the buildings, but the museum closed due to financial difficulties in 1993 and the site has been unused since then.

The fitters' shop (15) at Chatterley Whitfield was constructed in c.1935, replacing an earlier workshop to the ground floor of the former power house (4) to the south-west. It housed equipment for electricians, joiners and carpenters and was used primarily for the repair and maintenance of mine equipment and machinery, including mine cars. During the museum's tenure in the late C20 the building was used for locomotive repairs.

Reasons for Listing

The former fitters' shop of c.1935 at Chatterley Whitfield Colliery is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Historic interest: although a modest building, it is fundamental to the understanding and historical development of the colliery;
Representativeness: for its key role as a colliery service building, and as a component of one of the country's best surviving collieries from the industry's period of peak production;
Fittings: it contains a range of machinery which provides evidence for the historic function of the building;
Group value: it has a spatial relationship with other listed buildings and a scheduled monument.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26534835

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)