Blakelow Colliery 3

Coal mining on the southern side of Macclesfield Common was concentrated around Blakelow via a number of shafts to the north-east of the current boundary of Macclesfield Golf Club. The Macclesfield Copper Company leased the Blakelow workings in the later eighteenth century and was extracting the coal from the two Holcombe Brook Seams using pillar and stall workings drained by a sough driven from lower down the hill towards Macclesfield town. The seams were thin and sometimes less than 2ft thick, but the quality was good enough to make it worthwhile extracting them.

The mound just above the frosted grass is the spoil heap and site of the third shaft at the colliery. There are sign of the loading bank in the sunken lane behind. The cart road back to the copper works is seen running steeply uphill at the right side and then turning left to pass Higher Blakelow Farm on its way to Lower Blakelow. It must have been hard work for the horses to surmount this bank, but once past Higher Blakelow it was all downhill. I am told that there is a fourth shaft, but this has now disappeared under the adjacent golf course.