Early mining The area around
Nob End in
Kearsley, a few hundred yards to the north of the Wet Earth Colliery shows evidence of early
bell pit working and small ladder pits. The first deeper working was by the owner of the Clifton Estate, John Heathcote of
Glossop in
Derbyshire in the 1740s. Heathcote sank two shafts, which were about deep to the
Doe mine. This seam was 9 ft 7½ in thick and dipped at a gradient of 1 in 3½ to the south-west and outcrops in the river valley. Wet Earth Colliery was begun in 1751 when Heathcote sank a deep shaft to the seam about half a mile to the south-east but he ran into technical difficulties and had to call on the help of Matthew Fletcher.
1750–1804 Jacob Fletcher, a mine owner from
Bolton, had several mines in
Harwood,
Breightmet, Bolton and
Atherton. He had two sons, John and
Matthew.
John was responsible for sinking a pit in Atherton whilst Matthew took up mining engineering. John Heathcote was having problems with the pit and called on Matthew Fletcher to help sink a new shaft. The new shaft was sunk to the seam at a point which became the central focus of the Wet Earth complex. The shaft was deepened to to connect with the
Five Quarters mine which at this point was 3' 7" thick. The workings were plagued with water, which entered from the
River Irwell via the
Pendleton Fault. Heathcote asked Matthew Fletcher to advise him on how to solve the flooding, but it seems he was unsuccessful. Brindley, a relative of John Heathcote, was an engineer whose later feats would include the
Bridgewater Canal, the
Trent and Mersey Canal and the
Chester Canal, as well as the
Harecastle Tunnel. He initially suggested a scheme whereby a
Newcomen atmospheric pumping engine could be used to dewater the mine but the Newcomen engine had been plagued with problems in
dewatering deep mines. His revised scheme relied on water power. It had to overcome several obstacles, not least that there was no flowing water on the site to power a pump and that the pithead was above the level of the River Irwell. who founded the
Pilkington Tile Company on a site close to the Gal Pit. In 1838 the
Manchester and Bolton Railway opened, and
Dixon Fold railway station was built just to the south of Wet Earth Colliery.
1880–1928 The Pilkingtons undertook the final phase of expansion at the pit. The surface equipment was replaced and the coal was loaded and shipped without washing to save time and money. Output under the Pilkingtons doubled and the
Clifton and Kersley Coal Company was formed. The brothers deepened the shaft sunk by Ellis Fletcher, to reach the
Trencherbone mine at a depth of . During this period, further seams were worked including the Cannel, Victoria, Crumbouke and Five Quarters mines. In 1910, a tunnel was driven to connect to the Plodder Mine, which gave the mine a further lease of life until the river found a crack in the fault and flooded it and it was abandoned. Other seams were starting to be work out and, coupled with a miners' strike in 1921, the colliery was run down and closed in 1928. == Accidents ==