Mechanical Landscapes

Tag: Coal Mine

  • #680 – Hatfield Colliery 5

    #680 – Hatfield Colliery 5

    Compare the close in typology shot with the wider view showing the messiness of the site to demonstrate the art of composition and choosing what to include and exclude in the image. Two different photos of the same scene from a (more or less) similar position. Both photos are interesting in their own right, but…

  • #679 – Hatfield Colliery 4

    #679 – Hatfield Colliery 4

    I first posted my photographs of Hatfield Colliery a few years back here, here and here. But I took quite a lot on the day and I sometimes dip back into them to process one that I didn’t bother with first time around. This is one of them and while it’s maybe not of the…

  • #675 – Chatterley Whitfield 2

    #675 – Chatterley Whitfield 2

    I took a number of photographs of this view, trying to find the composition that was ‘just right’. And that is both the benefit and curse of digital photography, each exposure costs £0 so you can click away, unlike with film where very exposure costs you anything from several pence to several pounds depending on…

  • #674 – Chatterley Whitfield 1

    #674 – Chatterley Whitfield 1

    The crumbling Chatterley Whitfield Colliery is somewhere I’ve visited a couple of times on the annual Heritage Open Days and it’s a site I enjoy wandering round. They also open on some Saturdays so I decided to coincide a visit with a trip to the Foxfield Colliery. Unfortunately an email was sent out a few…

  • #673 – Foxfield Colliery Revisit 2

    #673 – Foxfield Colliery Revisit 2

    So while my primary reason for visiting was to get photographs for my typology, I did want to see a bit more of the site. Most of the original site is now a more modern industrial estate and yards, but as well as the two headgears and sidings, the railway also own a few smaller…

  • #672 – Foxfield Colliery Revisit 1

    #672 – Foxfield Colliery Revisit 1

    I first went to the Foxfield Railway in December 2011 for a photo charter involving a crane tank engine at the Foxfield Colliery. The colliery was a rare survivor – it had shut in the 1960’s but for reason that are unclear the site wasn’t levelled and the headgears (and some of the surface) buildings…

  • #671 – Astley Green revisited 3

    #671 – Astley Green revisited 3

    A (belated) last photograph from Astley Green, maybe slightly influenced by the street photographer Saul Leiter. OK, very influenced – my influences are many and diverse, although there’s no evidence of Leiter ever taking a photograph of a coal mine! This was very much a chance photograph – I’d finished looking round and had retired…

  • #670 – Astley Green revisited 2

    #670 – Astley Green revisited 2

    June 2024 saw a lot of changeable weather, and the day i visited alternated between sunshine and blue skies and dark clouds and rain. I’d taken a few photos of the headgear with an old railway crane in the foreground, as I liked the way the lattice structure on the boom complimented the lattice structure…

  • #669 – Astley Green revisited 1

    #669 – Astley Green revisited 1

    Astley Green Colliery – a geographical ambiguity. Saying it’s in Wigan will trigger the locals into fits of raging denial. While it doesn’t actually sit in the town of Wigan, it sits within the borough of Wigan, specifically Astley Green which comes under Tyldesley. The site is leased from Wigan Council, and if you’re travelling…

  • #666 – Scottish typology images

    #666 – Scottish typology images

    Two different headgears, five minutes apart. Barony is much easier to photograph, its sheer size make it relatively easy to photograph, although to get far enough away means you have to shoot from the south and wander into some undergrowth. But it stands in splendid isolation apart from various boards explaining the history and what…

  • #665 – Highhouse Colliery

    #665 – Highhouse Colliery

    If you turn right when you leave the Barony A Frame, and drive less than 5 minutes down Barony Road, you will find the Highhouse colliery headgear tucked away in the corner of a small industrial estate in Auchinleck. It’s not in great condition and it’s one of the smaller headgears I’ve seen, probably a…

  • #664 – Barony A-Frame 2

    #664 – Barony A-Frame 2

    The A-frame is apparently 180 feet high, and it’s certainly a big old thing. But with the demolition of the car hall underneath it it looks weirdly top heavy, almost alien like. So I’ve decided to accentuate this by using a 14-30 lens. The view from underneath is unusual to say the least. I’ve taken…

  • #663 – Barony A-Frame 1

    #663 – Barony A-Frame 1

    Barony Colliery, to the west of Auchinleck in Ayrshire was the last of the pits in the west of Scotland to close. It consisted of a number of shafts, although 1 and 2 were closed in the 1960’s, but all that survives is the headgear of No.3 shaft, more commonly known as the Barony A-Frame.…

  • #654 – Clipstone Colliery Revisit Part 2

    #654 – Clipstone Colliery Revisit Part 2

    There were three main areas visited – the winding engine hall, the adjacent power house and the heapstead under the upcast. The winding engine hall is now used as an events venue and has a large collection of mining memorabilia which was interesting but not what I wanted to photograph. The power house was more…

  • #653 – Clipstone Colliery Revisit Part 1

    #653 – Clipstone Colliery Revisit Part 1

    I’d last visited Clipstone Colliery in March 2009, not long after the site had been cleared, leaving just the magnificent grade 2 listed headstocks and power house standing alone in a recently graded field. In fact there were still piles of rubble round the back and the fence had not been erected around the buildings.…

  • #652 – Clipstone Colliery 2009

    #652 – Clipstone Colliery 2009

    These are some photographs that I’ve never published on this blog, although if you follow me on social media you will have seen them, and the colour versions appear on theviewfromthenorth.org. I visited here in 2009, and the site had just been cleared of all the surface buildings. All that was left was the grade…

  • #651 – Pleasley Colliery Revisit

    #651 – Pleasley Colliery Revisit

    I first visited both Clipstone and Pleasley Colliery on the same day in March 2009 and while Clipstone was my priority this time I thought I’d pay a quick visit to Pleasley as it was only 25 minutes away. Back in 2009 I was years away from starting my headgear typology but while I had…

  • #645 South Wales Road Trip Part 13 – Big Pit

    Big Pit was my last port of call as it was the most easterly pit and therefore – technically – on the way home. It’s the home of the Welsh Mining Museum so like all museums is free to enter, but they do charge £5 to park so regard that as an entry fee of…

  • #644 – South Wales Road Trip Part 12 – Lewis Merthyr

    #644 – South Wales Road Trip Part 12 – Lewis Merthyr

    Unlike Cefn Coed, the colliery museum at Lewis Merthyr remains open. Mine was a flying visit and I didn’t have time for the guided tour round the buildings as I wanted to look at a photographic exhibition that was being held there as well so I had to balance the time I had between making…

  • #643 – South Wales Road Trip Part 11 – Great Western Colliery

    This was a brief stop. The site wasn’t open and a small sign on the gate said it open Sundays 2-4 so I was 24 hours too early and I planned to be on the way home when it was open, so I just had a look from the pavement. And that’s quite easy to…

  • #642 – South Wales Road Trip Part 10 – Tower Colliery

    I’m not sure if you’re allowed in without a booking for one of the rides, but I thought I’d chance my arm – you don’t get if you don’t ask. The lovely girl on the desk was slightly perplexed by my request but agreed that I could go in as long as I stayed in…