tarboat's photos with the keyword: rainow

Marker stone below Buxton New Road, Eddisbury. This marks the boundary between Macclesfield and Rainow. M = Macclesfield and R on the reverse unsurprisingly = Rainow.

This one came as a complete surprise. I had no idea that this firm had existed and do not know where they made their firebricks. Harrop is a district at the north-west of the parish of Rainow where there were a number of small coal and fireclay mines in the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century in a couple of cases. The only kiln that I know of in that area was at Brink Brow north of Further Harrop Farm.

It being another sunny Friday, I set off in search of another of the Macclesfield Collieries although this one is actually just in Rainow. Eddisbury Colliery was operated by Jonathan Hully from the 1860s until at least the mid 1880s but does not appear on the mines list for 1896. In the Geological Memoirs of 1866 it states: 'The Big Mine (Feather-edge Coal) is worked on Eddisbury Hill, it is from four to six feet thick, but only fit for brick-kilns or lime burning' The Eddisbury pit was actually 69 yards deep to this seam which is now known as the Bassy Mine. These are the gates that guarded access to the mine along the access track off the Buxton Road. The spoil heap is evident ahead.

On of the Hulley pits is still evident on the top of the bank above Eddisburygate. The workings that produced this spoil heap were probably active in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. The Little Smut and Sweet seams are closest to the surface here.

The land on the slope of Ecton Hill in Rainow and Commonside in Macclesfield is riddled with old coal workings. On the far side of the Buxton New Road is Eddisbury Hill on which can be clearly seen the remains of the spoil mound of Brocklehurst's Eddisbury Hill Colliery which operated after the First World War and was abandoned in 1925. The workings in the foreground are much older and date from some time after the enclosure of the Rainow Wastes in the 1620s. At that time Laurence Hooley (Hulley) of the One House, who already had coal under his land, was granted additional acreage on Eddisbury. These pits are both small and numerous and do not appear to have been worked with a horse gin. I reckon they employed a simple hand windlass (locally known as a 'Pit Turn' ) to raise the baskets of coal. They were largely worked out by the end of the eighteenth century. As an aside, I have searched the OS maps of the Macclesfield area for mention of Ecton Hill and cannot find the name on any of them.

When walking down the Gritstone Trail from Berristall the view across to Billinge Hill includes Winterside Farm which has recently undergone significant refurbishment. Just above the farmhouse and to the left and right can be seen the remains of coal mining in the outcrop of the Upper Holcombe Brook seam. I have not yet looked on the ground but I would expect these to have been a pair of drifts into the hill. The coal here is very thin, maybe only about 14" thick, and it must have been a lot of effort for little return.

All on its own - house in the fields near Hough Hole, Rainow. Viewed from Kerridge Hill.

One of the joys of my job is that sometimes I find myself in places with wonderful views. This example is taken from the Gritstone Trail above Macclesfield and looking north-east toward Big Low and Charleshead in Rainow. Great walking country.