History by Fire on the hill. Visit the site, click here

 

The Brymbo Colliery’s Bye Pit dated from the Robertson era, being sunk in 1843 under the supervision of mine agent Samuel Jones. (Jones was an experienced mining engineer, who also worked for the collieries at Broughton and Ruabon as well as the Westminster Colliery at Brymbo, and under whom Isaac Shone would serve his apprenticeship). The Bye Pit – actually two pits, no. 1 and no. 2 – was often known as the “Blast Pit”, as it was within the ironworks perimeter close to the furnaces.

 

Although not as dramatic as the boiler explosion at the Wonder Pit, the Blast Pit’s workers had a lucky escape in January 1893 when part of the haulage engine gear gave way at the end of a shift, trapping 300 men below ground. “An old deep engine on the bank was called into requisition“, reported the Advertiser‘s regular “Brymbo Notes and Notions” correspondent, “and worked by hand [...] the men were bought to the surface in a tub, two coming up each time“. The “slow and tedious” process took all of Saturday night, with the last men not rescued until 8 a.m. on Sunday, many of them having simply gone to sleep until rescued.

 

Despite a subsequent period of closure  - the pit’s workings in the Drowsell seam having been closed in March 1893, with the loss of around 150 jobs, according to the Advertiser – the Blast Pit stayed open as late as 1914. A historically interesting article in the Brymbo works newspaper, summer 1977 issue, included a brief reminiscence by a Mr A. Griffiths – then 86 – who had worked in the pit before closure and recalled it as “extremely wet [...] like working in a continuous rainstorm or worse”. The water was thought to come down from higher workings in the Drowsell.