I'M STILL DEVELOPING MY FILMING SKILLS I'VE RECENTLY INVESTED IN A GIMBAL, CAMERA AND OTHER EQUIPMENT TO TRY AND BRING BETTER FILM IN THE FUTURE.
Ok let's start, I didn't really know much about this abandoned building, but this is what I did end up finding.
The Jubilee Colliery was built in 1845 and closed in 1932. The site is one of the last few remaining examples of Oldham’s industrial mining heritage and is the most accessible one in the area.
Since the colliery closed, nature has moved back into the site. Trees, ferns, mosses, fungi and flowers have colonised the colliery remains and rubble, in turn attracting local wildlife to the area.
The production of coke became a significant aspect of Jubilee Colliery following the success of an initial battery of ovens placed against the eastern retaining wall in the southern part of the site.
A battery of 26 double, back-to-back ovens was subsequently erected immediately to the north of a presumably contemporary boiler house in the 1880s, with a further extension of similar size to the north in the early twentieth century.
Another battery of single ovens was also built along the eastern retaining wall in the northern part of the site, which was partially extended between 1909 and 1930 into a double bank.
The remains of a number of back to back coke ovens can still be viewed above the ground at Jubilee Colliery.
The 2014 Oxford Archaeology North excavation of Jubilee Colliery revealed well-preserved remains of later phases of beehive coke ovens across a large part of the site, enhancing the value of the above-ground remains of the large double row of ovens that dominates the northern part of the site.
In Part 2, I get inside....
