This practice is illustrated in the ‘Royal Commission on the Employment of Children in Mines and Manufacturies’ (1842) which documented the plight of children working underground. As a result, women and children could wind coal to the surface. This developed into putting a ratchet on the wheel which meant you could let go of it without the load tumbling into the shaft. The situation was improved by the introduction of a ‘windlass’. Many bell pits were uncovered during construction of the M1 Motorway which ran through the outcrop area including Trowel Moor, Babbington, Selston and Pinxton.Īs bell pits got deeper, hauling coal to the surface became more difficult. These went a little deeper and when working became too difficult the miners simply dug another one nearby. Shallow pits were dug to extract the coal, which led onto the development of ‘bell-pits’.
At first, people took coal from the surface (opencast mining) where they found coal at the ‘Basset-edge’ where coal ‘outcropped’ to the seam.
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