The South Staffordshire Collieries
J. Giniswick · 2021
In the southern part of Staffordshire—touching upon the town of Wol-verhampton, then running in a north-easterly direction towards Bloxwich, from thence stretching to the south, and comprising within its limits Wal-sall, Wednesbury and Tipton, and extending as far as Dudley—lies the South Staffordshire Coalfield. It is a great basin of coal and ironstone seams, frequently running in alternate strata, and in some places especially towards the northern skirts of the field, approaching so near the surface as to be capable of excavation by means of rude and inexpensive, though in the end very uneconomical, machinery. This coal and iron bed has been diligently worked for many years. Above, for dozens of miles together, the country is literally a waste of cinders and refuse coal dust, studded with flaming iron-works, countless engine houses, and thickly clustered groups of dismal, squalid villages, any one of which it is as hard to distinguish from its neighbour, as it is to make out the individual pitmen, when their faces are all one black mask of coal-dust and grime. Under-neath these iron works, engine-houses and swarming villages, the country is absolutely hollow—the rent and cracked walls, and tottering buildings marking where the superincumbent strata have been crushed down into the caverns gradually formed beneath them.