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Nunnery colliery shaft cap


miamivice

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Opposite Makro and William Cooks on parkway avenue there is a square bordered by some very tall conifer trees and inside a small building. I was told that this was the shaft cap for the nunnery colliery shaft cap. Is this correct?

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Hi miamivice !  Correct about the shaft cap. I worked at the BT depot above the location of the cap. Remember lorry after lorry bring debris which was emptied down the shaft until it was full to ground level. This was approx 1980.

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Hi miamivice. It's some 28 years since I was last in that location, sorry I only remember the car park with just the fenced section in the middle. 

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Could it be a little pump house ? When the shaft was filled in there may have been a pipe to the side of the shaft used to drain the workings. Possibly this may have been left in place to continue draining the workings. The reason I suggest this is because someone I once worked with, who was involved with the canal, told me that there was a large pipe which discharged into the canal a large quantity of very rusty water. He told me that this was water drained from the depths of the old Nunnery Colliery. If this is the case the pipeline must be quite long.

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Hi hilldweller

Quite right about the fact that water from the Nunnery was piped across and into the canal and yes it was an ochre colour.

However, I know the exact location of the outlet into the canal and on my recent journeys down the canal past that outlet on both my bike and on foot, I haven't seen any sign of ochre water discharge.

Looking at a map of the area ( Parkway Av. / Woodbourn Road ) and scaling the length of the pipe would be around 5- 600 yards.

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I guess that was because they had to keep pumping while there were other active pits within the coalfield to prevent drainage from the old Nunnery pit finding it's way into other active mines. My father was working at the Nunnery when it closed and was transfered to Handsworth pit which was interconnected by workings.

Now there are no pits within many miles,  (the last pits to shut were Maltby and Harworth), presumably there is no longer any need to pump and the workings will be allowed to flood.

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Possibly the shaft cap itself is in the car Park that is now what looks like a vehicle impound. There’s a square that’s fenced off maybe that’s the actual shaft cap?

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Hi miamivice and apologies for a late response. I worked at the BT depot, that car park was for the lads that worked from there.

I watched as lorries came and dumped 100's of loads of waste bricks / materials etc down the shaft.

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