Robin Hood Mine (Swinton)

From International Robin Hood Bibliography
Locality
Coordinate 53.526, -2.3356
Adm. div. Lancashire
Vicinity Opposite the Robin Hood at 180 Manchester Road, Swinton, Manchester
Type Establishment
Interest Robin Hood name
Status Defunct
First Record 1892
A.k.a. Robin Hood Colliery
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Site of the Robin Hood Mine.

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2019-02-26. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2021-01-07.

The Robin Hood Mine in Clifton (Swinton, Manchester) was probably situated opposite the present Robin Hood pub on 180 Manchester Road.

The secondary sources do not tell us where the colliery was situated, but the earliest of the O.S. maps listed below have a mine opposite the Robin Hood pub at what is now 180 Manchester Road. A few hundred meters to the east was Robin Hood Siding, but most likely the unnamed mine in the O.S. maps was the Robin Hood Mine. It is said to have been "midway between the Wet Earth and Botany Bay collieries, but farther from the Irwell."[1] This tallies better with the location near the pub.

Operations at the mine were begun or taken over by Matthew Fletcher, whose period of activity seems to have begun c. 1756. He did in 1808.[2] If Fletcher gave the colliery its name, this would then have been between those dates. However, it is also possible that the mine already existed under that name before he acquired it or that it was in fact only renamed the "Robin Hood Mine" at some later point, perhaps even after Fletcher's time. The fact that it is now referred to as the "Robin Hood Mine" is no guarantee that this was its original name. Despite the fact that both its name and history probably went a good deal further back, the 1892 allusion is therefore the earliest certain reference.

Allusions

1892 - Grindon, Leo H - Lancashire (4)

The organic remains found in the coal strata rival those of the mountain limestone both in abundance and exquisite lineaments. In some parts there are incalculable quantities of relics of fossil fishes, scales of fishes, and shells resembling mussels. The glory of these wonderful subterranean museums consists, however, in the infinite numbers and the inexpressible beauty of the impressions of fern-leaves, and of fragments of the stems — well known under the names of calamites, sigillaria, and lepidodendra — of the great plants which in the pre-Adamite times composed the woods and groves. In some of the mines — the Robin Hood, for instance, at Clifton, five miles from Manchester — the roof declares, in its flattened sculptures, the ancient existence hereabouts of a vast forest of these plants.[3]

Gazetteers

Maps

Discussion

Also see

Notes