Pooley Hall Colliery

The Pooley Hall Estate surrounded the hall built by Sir Thomas Cockayne in 1509. Later the hall became the property of Charles Jennens and subsequently the Hon. Charles Finch MP. When the Coventry Canal opened in 1789 – it runs within twenty metres of the hall – it was probably inevitable that coal would be extracted from the extensive coalfields.

The first shaft was sunk in 1849 and completed in 1849, with the first coal extracted the following year. By 1897 the colliery had been formed and a branch line built to connect to the Trent Valley Line – remains of the bridge across the canal can still be seen.

In 1921 the Pooley Hall miners did not join the miners’ strike and in June the striking miners at Baddesley and Birch Coppice marched on Polesworth to persuade them to join the strike – but 200 policemen had been drafted in and a baton charge left several striking miners unconscious. Eventually the strikers accepted the reduction in salary and extension of the working week, as the Pooley Hall miners already had.

In 1924 the colliery was visited by the Duke of York – the miners selected to meet the future King George VI were instructed to wear their Sunday best suit and a flat cap (if you didn’t own a flat cap, go out and buy one!) Further evidence of the conditions they worked in was hidden by whitewashing the pit bottom, while an underground toilet was installed (the first in the country) complete with rosewood seat. Nobody could use this toilet until the Duke’s visit was over, and within the week the bucket toilet was removed as the stench was overpowering.

The miners did join the strike of 1936, but as the family also owned Tamworth Electricity Company, they used the suddenly available labour to dig trenches for the electricity cables to bring electricity to surrounding villages.

The colliery closed in 1965 – much of the buildings had to be demolished due to subsidence. Today 154 acres of the estate is Pooley Hall Country Park.

Superstitious Black Country Miners

It is no surprise to find those working in dangerous jobs as being among the most superstitious. As is often the case, while researching one thing another interesting snippet surfaces and I found the following seven omens of disaster.

Ghosts and spirits seen in the workings could be chased off with the Bible and a key held in the right hand while reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Remember, not that long ago miners worked with candles and such would readily have produced the eeriest of images.

Foul smells were a bad omen – certainly true as any detection of gases which could asphyxiate or, such as methane, potentially explosive would be very useful.

If Gabriel’s hounds had been about the works, then no work was done that day. Gabriel’s Hounds (also known as Gabriel’s Ratchets) are legendary spectral hounds associated with death and misfortune in folklore – sometimes described as a pack of ghostly dogs with human heads that fly through the air while yelping. Some have ascribed this belief to migrating geese at night – night flying geese is also a bad omen.

A bright light seen in the mine was a good reason to flee. Aside from the obvious sign of fire, there is also a link to ghosts and spirits. Black magic was supposedly possible in the depths of the shafts – and protecting themselves by placing a crust of bread and a piece of cheese alongside a cross made from a knife and fork at the mouth of the shaft, before reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards would be sure to save them. Unless, of course, somebody dreamed of the bread and cheese being eaten. Bread/cheese and knife/fork dates back to lead mining.

Dreams of fire were harbingers of danger – and for obvious reasons.

If a woman was encountered at sunrise on the way to the pit, the men would turn on their heels and return to their homes. This goes back to the Staffordshire ‘plaguey woman’, another promise of doom and disaster. One colliery used a female ‘knocker-up’ – one employed to rouse the workers from their beds in the days before alarm clocks – which didn’t help the superstitious men in getting ready for work. Pit managers rarely accepted this reason for absenteeism.

To dream of a broken shoe foretold danger. Shoes feature regularly in Black Country folklore, but this would be a result of the Wednesbury miner who dreamed of his one shoe crumbling and ignored the warning only to be killed the next day.

A Walk Around the Former Local Mines (in Staffordshire and Warwickshire)

As part of the research for a forthcoming book, I recently walked a route looking at some of the industrial heritage between Tamworth and Atherstone. This is a long circular walk but could easily be made shorter or turned into a linear walk by using the canal or railway to begin at Atherstone. I shall start at any point on the Coventry Canal from Fazeley Junction to Amington Green and head east towards Coventry, aided by Ordnance Survey Map 220.
No matter where you begin note when you cross under bridge 63 and the signs for Hodge Lane Nature Reserve, for we will catch up with this later. Other than the canal itself, the first sign of coal comes at Alvecote, with its marina and the Samuel Barlow pub, named after a haulier who will have moved tons of coal. Pass under Robeys Lane and opposite the ruins of Alvecote Priory, to the left is the Alvecote Pools beyond the railway, created when the ground subsided post-mining and subsequently flooded. This is part of Pooley Hall Nature Reserve, also known as Canal Pool. Note the adjacent spoil heap offers excellent views if you wish to climb it.
Soon you will hear the M42 and as we approach the canal narrows – here the railway once crossed the canal, the arch on the opposite side from the tow path is modern strengthening but on the towpath side the brickwork of the bridge support is typical railway architecture. Beyond note there is a marker post, it has a blue arrow and indicates we are walking the Miner’s Way. Just before where the M42 crosses is bridge 56, leading to Pooley Country Park, take this bridge and follow the metalled road – noting the images steniclled on the support of the motorway bridge. When you see the parking for disabled signposted, take a slight detour and take in the visitor centre and the former winding wheel for Pooley Hall.
Continue and alongside a straight stretch, note the war memorial erected by the colliery to those who fell in the Great War who had previously worked the mine. There are good views across to the left of the canal and countryside. At the bottom of this path is the B5000, turn left, cross the canal bridge, then at the crossroads go straight on and cross the canal again along Grendon Road. Ignore Common Road and take the second right, St Helena Road. Just past Rowena Gardens there is a field gate on the left, here a stone marks the site of the Little Jim’s Cottage miners’ cottage. Look on the right and the first of three stiles heading off to the right where it takes you to a gate, almost invisible until quite near. Turn left here, then at the top at Hollies Cottage, take the path to the right around the cottage, through a kissing gate, and then up a well-trodden grassy path to the top corner of the field and another kissing gate. Walk through, turn left, and take the left path across the stile.

Keep the hedge on your right and walk on until reaching the metal gate, and stile. Cross the road, the meeting of Dunns Lane and Church Road, and follow the footpath waymarked straight ahead through the small wood. Here another stile points us straight ahead, this field passes between the site of the former pit to the right, beyond the woodland, and on the left is the remains of a spoil heap. Follow the hedgerow to a gap, then take a short detour through this gate to see said spoil heap not yet reclaimed by nature. Come back through the gate and turn left and head for the corner of the field. Across the stile and take the drive on the right. This brings you to the A5 Watling Street.
Here head downhill along the bust A5, crossing after the island until reaching the houses lying back from the road on the right. Turn in and find Waste Lane, which we follow south along here along a broad and well-made track. After a while reach Folly Lane and turn right. The aptly-named Waste Hill is to the right and in a while you reach the summit of this road where you will find a metal gate on the left. Pause and look across to see Merevale Hall on the top of the hill in the distance. Shortly we reach the junction with The Common, turn right along this road using the footpath on the opposite side as we skirt Baddesley Common. Eventually reaching Baddesley, take the third road on the left which is New Street, note the monument in the form of the winding wheel dedicated to the miners on the corner.

Walk down New Street until just before the end where it turn sharply left there is a footpath waymarked to the right, follow this gravel path to Watery Lane at the bottom where we turn right. Follow this until we reach the first waymarked path on the left. Through the kissing gate and head to the right across the field to the gap in the hedge ahead. Continue on and come to a crossing over a brook. Cross here and turn left. Pause to see the major railway viaduct above, we will be following the path of the disused railway for a while. Pass under the viaduct and straight ahead to a gate. Go through the gate and turn right. Now keep the hedgerow on the right to parallel the former railway. Occasionally there is the opportunity to pop in to see and even walk the former track bed, but don’t follow it too far as it does not give access to the rest of the walk, although once it did take coal away from the mines here.

Keep going until you have seen the embankment become a cutting and shortly there is a waymarker pointing diagonally across the latter part of the field to a stile. Cross the stile and turn right keeping the hedge on the right and soon come to a gap in the hedge and another stile. Emerge on the road and turn left, take the second footpath on the right and follow the markers taking you around the field keeping the hedgerow on your right. At the far corner is a kissing gate, go through and skirt the single property there by a narrow path. Follow this and along the drive away from the house come to another gate. Go through and keep the woodland on your left and walk between it and the fence until reaching a plank bridge which we cross and come to a kissing gate opposite, go through and at cross the field to the gap where two footpaths form a crossroads, turn right here. Ahead is a kissing gate and you can see further evidence of the dismantled railway to the right as we near. Ascend the steps and then turn left and quickly right across the remains of the disused railway. Now we see a tunnel (albeit effectively a large pipe) which we will go through to emerge between two green fences. On the right is the freight terminal, on the left the railway lines still run with rolling stock here. At the end the path funnels and takes us down to another tunnel, emerging and turning left along the gravel path where the spoil heap is visible to the left. As the path runs out, take the gate on the right and cross the railway track. Turn immediately right and then left when this track terminates at the gate. Soon we come to the modern industrial estate with roads named after former collieries. Cross over and turn left. Follow this through three traffic islands to emerge at Watling Street via Danny Morson Way. Cross at the pedestrian crossing and turn right. Opposite a large old building is an ungated gap which we follow.
Along this track to the top of the rise and turn right through a narrow pathway and eventually come out on Green Lane and a dog leg to the right on to Cockspur Street, turn left at the junction and after the junction of the left, Cockspur Street becomes Hermitage Lane as you leave Birchmoor. At the end of Hermitage Lane we reach the B5000 again. Turn left and we can now choose between Robeys Lane on the right, this a metalled road with no pathway and nothing of interest until we reach the ruins of the priory and the marina again, when we can follow the canal back west to our chosen starting point. Perhaps of more interest would be to continue and turn right at the second traffic island. This is Mercian Way and passes an industrial estate and new housing until, after another two traffic islands, a grassy area to the right heralds the start of Hodge Lane Nature Reserve which we can follow through to the canal and then back west to our chosen starting point on the Coventry Canal.
Altogether this is a walk of more than ten miles (depending upon the starting point). No great climbs but gently rolling landscape with an excellent mix of former industry and modern countryside. As stated at the beginning there is ample opportunity to cut the route short at several points.