Author Topic: Kent colliery towns  (Read 2261 times)

Offline CAT

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Re: Kent colliery towns
« Reply #4 on: July 06, 2020, 12:05:39 PM »
For reference

Offline MartinR

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Re: Kent colliery towns
« Reply #3 on: July 06, 2020, 11:59:30 AM »
(edit conflict)
Umm, a mile is not long for a colliery road.  For instance Easington Colliery in Durham reached out 4 miles under the North Sea in 1951, yet only closed in 1993.

Aylesham was built to house the miners from the Snowdown colliery which is close by.  There's more information on the coalfield as a whole at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Coalfield  Dover museum has an introductory page for the two collieries at https://www.dovermuseum.co.uk/Exhibitions/Coal-Mining-in-Kent/History/Betteshanger-Colliery.aspx and https://www.dovermuseum.co.uk/Exhibitions/Coal-Mining-in-Kent/History/Snowdown-Colliery.aspx

Offline CAT

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Re: Kent colliery towns
« Reply #2 on: July 06, 2020, 11:58:12 AM »
Aylesham was originally going to be the main focus for housing the miners with Betteshanger, Snowdown and Tilmanstone all fairly close by. each colliery had its own smaller housing with managers housing, but Aylesham was to be the main centre. There were also mines at Chislet (northeast of Canterbury) and on the sea shore at Dover (Shakespere Beach), though numerous test boring amongst the surrounding villages never amounted to formal mining. The coal field itself stretched in a wedge shape from just east of Canterbury in the northwest to Richborough in the northeast and Folkestone in the southeast and extending out beneath the English Channel.


If both the mining and the steel industry's had both taken off, how different would East Kent have looked?   

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Offline Dave Smith

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Kent colliery towns
« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2020, 10:46:17 AM »
CAT. Many thanks for that, I would never have known. Was Aylesham close to Bettershanger? ( Presumably the same coal field?). I remember Bettershanger being in the Kent League when I used to follow Gills' in the 40's. I understand that the coal seams there had got over a mile long & were completely uneconomical.