Bygone Days

Although the old Winner Colliery, which was also known as the Winning Colliery, was in production since the early part of the 19th century - today there is little evidence of it ever having existed as it is buried under a conifer plantation.


Originally it was owned by Edward Protheroe, in his day a major figure in the coal community in the Forest, and over the years the Colliery underwent many changes. It was absorbed into the Bilson Colliery and later still became part of the Crump Meadow Colliery. For a time the Winner Colliery extracted coal from the Churchway High Delf Seam until it, by 1880, became exhausted.

With active coal extraction ceasing in the Winner section of the now-combined (Winner/Bilson/Crump Meadow) pit the now empty and exhausted coal levels appear to have been used for draining and for pumping water out of the working parts of the mining complex - there was, after all, a 30-inch steam engine able to pump water from as deep as 390 feet using the now redundant shafts.