Lancashire & Denbigshire - THE NORTH WEST

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 20th Year

Issue

Issue No.

6

Date Released

Feb 1967

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1National Story - WATER - EVERYWHERE
2. 2County Durham - WARM PARTNERS
3. 3Scotland - GROUP THERAPY
4. 4Lancashire & Denbigshire - THE NORTH WEST

Story

Story No. within this Issue

4 / 4

Summary

BFI synopsis: Transport in the Lancashire coalfield.
NCB Commentary - Lancashire’s industrial towns and villages lie mostly tuckes away in valleys between high hill ridges. It’s difficult country to get about in - let alone to transport coal and manufactured goods from place to place.
But Lancashire has always been the county of innovations - neccessity is the mother of invention.
It was here more than 200 years ago that the Duke of Bridgewater built some of Britain’s first canals - many of them underground - to transport the coal from his collieries to the growing cities. Much of the network of canals still remains - as does the brickwork built so many years ago.
Today, the National Coal Board still look after more than 50 miles of canals.
Some of the coal that comes from Bickershaw Colliery still travels by barge along the Bridgewater canal - as it does from another long-life pit, Astley Green.
But, of course, there are other forms of transport. Today, as you come into Lancashire on the M6, you jump over Bridgewater’s canal, a railway, a main road, the Manchester Ship Canal and the River Mersey almost without noticing. Then at once you see out in front of you the twin towers of Lancashire’s newest colliery - Parkside. This indeed is a pit to match the motorway.
If you’re travelling north by train - then, only a couple of miles away you pass Golborne, less spectacular perhaps, but once again a colliery with a future ... just as, if you’re dashing from Liverpool to Manchester, you pass Mosley Common.

Keywords

Transport; Mining

Locations

England; Lancashire

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
The National Archives COAL 32   /13 Scripts for Mining Review, 1960-1963

Credits:

Sponsor

National Coal Board

Production Co.

National Coal Board Film Unit