Coal Mining in North Staffordshire
The North Staffordshire coal field encompassed Goldsitch Moss, Shaffalong, Cheadle and the Potteries. The Potteries coalfield was three times larger than the others put together and offered greater depths of workable coal.
From around the 13th century coal was dug from bell pits and drift mines! A bell pit was basically a shallow shaft which in section looked like bell where a miner would strike out with his pick into the coal face at the bottom. A drift mine was a semi-horizontal shaft driven into hillsides or shallow seams; which were worked in recent times at Apedale and Chatterley Whitfield. Around the mid 1700's the availability of cheap coal was a major factor in the setting up of the first porcelain works in Longton. As the demand for coal grew, industrialists dug deeper, dealing with problems of ventilation and drainage as they went. The industrial exploitation of the areas mineral wealth led to the spoiling of our green and pleasant land. Notably Fenton's Christchurch was rebuilt in 1890 due to massive subsidence caused by the closeness of Glebe Colliery. By 1859 total district output of 2 million tons of coal was achieved, steadily increasing until 1910 when there were 75 mines in the area and employing 28,912 men and producing 6,567,892 tons of coal. deeper shafts were being dug for the coal and Hanley deep pit was sunk to a depth of 2,661 feet by the start of the 20th century, to take advantage of the abundance of coal seems. In 1937 Chatterley Whitfield, the largest colliery in Staffordshire and known as "The Old Lady" became the countries first million ton a year pit.
From 1914-1947 the coal industry began to feel the pinch partly to the emergence of oil as a popular fuel, and there was a need for a change. The industry was nationalised in 1947 but continued to shrink, and only the bigger, modernised profitable collieries survived. Eventually through competition from subsidised coal from abroad being brought by the power stations lead to the death knell for our local pits. From the early 1960s they started to close one by one.
For most people the blowing up of the A-frame at Hem Heath in 1997 represented the final nail in the coffin for deep mining in Stoke-On-Trent although Silverdale closed in 1998.
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