Location - Boyles Hall

Boyles Hall shaft, formerly part of Boyles Hall Colliery which closed in the 1860s, was incorporated into Diglake so that men living over towards Audley would not have so far to walk to work. It was via the old Boyles Hall shaft that all of the men who survived the flood escaped. Ironically, in the 1860s flood at Boyles Hall, a man called Sproston survived three days underground by eating his supply of candles.

Boyles Hall shaft, taken possibly in 1895.

A close-up of the image above, showing three men by the shaft's cage, and possibly a fourth figure in white behind the man on the left.

An extract on Boyles Hall Colliery from the excellent website of North Staffordshire Coalfield:

BOYLES HALL Co
(See Audley section) SJ 508 804 (506 809)
The Boyles Hall Colliery was probably first sunk in the area 508 803. Where dirt tips and engine pools are shown and the pit drained by a gutter to Townfields.
Boyles Hall Farm is situated at SJ 506 803. At the close of the eighteenth century the farm was tenanted by Samuel Burgess, who also worked the colliery. By about 1814 a partnership between Burgess and Thomas Madew was working the colliery.
However, the slump at the end of the war bankrupted the partners and the colliery was taken over by the landowner Thomas Fletcher Boughey in 1816. He appointed a manager, Robert Rigby. Rigby drove a new gutter and sunk new pits, approx. 506 808. Sir T F Boughey died in 1823 and sometime after Robert Rigby leased the colliery, he worked it until about 1850. (The Old Diglake closed 1854.)
Rigby’s pits were:
Boyles Hall No1. Adjacent to NSR railway line, on the corner of the dirt ruck, screens by railway.
Boyles Hall No2 ‘Derby’ shaft with chimney on the rise side up towards Boon Hill Cricket Club.
Boyles Hall (?) Supposedly covered with an iron plate in the railway cutting. (It seems doubtful that the railway company would allow this!) The railway was, of course, not built in Robert Rigby’s lease.
Rigby’s still held the colliery in 1896 it was held by William Rigby & Co and standing, but later in that year it was reopened and had a connection with Rigby’s Diglake Colliery. This was fortunate as it was the escape route taken by those who survived the Diglake inundation of 1896.
(NB. the inundation happened in January 1895 so it seems likely that if Boyles Hall shaft No. 1 was a recent addition to Diglake Colliery it would have been opened in 1894).

The above map shows the location of the Boyles Hall shafts, map from the excellent Magic Map service.

The same map above superimposed over an aerial photograph from the excellent Google Maps service. The line of the old railway can be seen running south west to northeast through the middle of the picture. The empty field between Stephens Way and Monument View represents the location of the old Boyles Hall Colliery and Shaft No. 1.

Modern aerial photography with the map from the 1890s superimposed. Although it is hard to align the two exactly, the old colliery site is visible in the empty field mentioned above. Boyles Hall Shaft No. 2 is marked as Old Shafts (Coal) to the east of the railway line (the original Boyles Hall Colliery pre-dated the railway by some years).

In September of 2006, PaulD, Diglake researcher and descendent of Edwin Henry Webb, took photographs and video of the area around the old Boyles Hall Colliery, for which I am very grateful. In the 1930s, PaulD's father used to play in the area of the old colliery, and recalls that the green empty field was a large dirt tip, with the shaft in the middle of the area, with a wall round it. He remembers he and other children used to climb on and throw things into the water at the bottom, suggesting it was then uncapped.

Looking north towards Monument Way, from the empty field adjacent to the old railway line (just visible on the right).

Looking west from the same location towards Brindleys Way. A slight depression can be seen in the grass - a remnant from the old colliery?

Looking west from the empty field, across the old railway line towards Boon Hill.

Looking south with the old railway on the left.

Looking west over the new housing development from Boons Hill Rd next to the footpath. The area where Shaft No. 2 is shown on the map is down where the confers are. on private land

.
Looking west again from the footpath near Boons Hill Rd itself.

A little way down the footpath, close to where Shaft No. 2 is shown on the map.

Taken close to the Plough Inn, just visible on the left, across to the site of Diglake Colliery, now hidden by trees.

Taken from the old railway cutting, at roughly the same location as the 1963 photo above (showing the train being lifted by crane), looking south. Boyles Hall Colliery would be over to the right.

PaulD also took some video of the site of the old Boyles Hall Colliery, to the west of the railway line. Click here to view it.