Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past History Information Request neston canals

Hi a guy i work with was talking today about
neston underground canals to do with the old coal mines.
does anyone know any more about these i have not heard of them before but that does not mean alot ?

Not heard of them myself, an abandoned mine would soon turn into a canal due to lack of pumping.

just found a very interesing thread about them on here cant remember how to post the link but sure enough they existed

do full reply, then click on the 2nd icon (the blue one - it's for creating a link to a webpage)copy and paste the address of the link into the the long box that then shows above.
then another box shows up where you can type in clicky or here or whatever you want

They got mentioned on last week's 'Where's Fred?' on Granada Reports when he visited Neston!

Anthony Annakin-Smith is the local expert and often does talks on this subject.

Clicky click:- http://nestontowncouncil.org.uk/community/history/the-neston-collieries/

thanks for that just could not remember how to do it
will have another look in more depth tomorrow

From the link above


Deep inside the mine beneath the floor level, two underground canals known as Navigation's were dug in out in
the summer of 1791 for the purpose of transporting coal to the exit shaft. The transportation along these
canals was carried out by small wooden boats known as Starvationers, named so because of their prominent
ribs. The boats were used to bring the coal from large distant faces to the pit shaft. The two canals were dug
55m and 86m below sea level and spread out underneath the Dee Estuary, which at the time was a hive of
activity. Once the boats were full the men would lay on their backs in the boat and push their feet along the
ceiling to propel the boat down the canal; this technique was refereed to locally as legging. On the canals 4
boats would be tied together with each one carrying 800kg of coal when full. As time advanced the use of the
boats stopped in favour of horse drawn wagons.

If anyone wants further information on the canals, or the history of the Neston collieries in general, Anthony wrote a series of articles on the subject for The Wirral Journal.

On the map below, one of the canals was the one labelled "Navigation No. 10", which came up towards the shoreline, did a loop around 10 shaft, 11 shaft and an engine shaft, and then went out under the estuary again.

The map shows the workings from various shafts of the Ness Collieries.

Map compiled from maps supplied by AAS.