Right, I thought, let’s do it. Following the recent attention to the Anglesey Wharf and coal screening conveyor, I considered that it must be possible to find the Anglesey Basin drift shaft within the mapping record. Someone will have plotted it… sure to have, I thought…
Well, it wasn’t so easy. The only evidence I can find is on the 1930 second-epoch based 1:2,500 issue. It’s a good find, but not conclusive, but decent enough to go exploring with a GPS. Here’s what I found.
A Google Earth overlay of the map can be downloaded at the link below. This can be used in Google Earth itself, or as a basemap in modern Garmin GPS units – find out how, here.
1938 1:2,500 Anglesey Wharf Overlay – hosted at Box.
As usual, I welcome cat calls, corrections, clarifications, etc…
1938 1:2,500 ordnance survey plot of Anglesey Wharf. This is the only one I can find that explicitly labels the drift shaft – interestingly as ‘Disused’. Click for a larger version.
The logical thing to do was overlay the above map onto Google Earth. Note the line of the line into the shaft – broadly speaking northwest – would take it through the Rugby Club’s pitch, which is where the shaft of Cannock Chase No. 2 Colliery was sunk. Click for a larger version.
Here’s a zoom on the drift shaft detail. I think the ‘portal’ the men were seen sitting on in the image below is upper left of centre. Note that as Dave Fellows says, you can see remnants of the wall in the scrub. Click for a larger version.
Dave Fellows’ great picture of the drift shaft portal in 1921. Unsure of actual source.
This imagery – based on Ordnance Survey Streetview mapping stretched to a five-times amplified version of the landscape contours indicates the reason for the position and type of shaft. From the bank of the Crane Brook valley, there was a very acceptable angle which would already have negated much of the depth of No. 2 Colliery on higher ground in the distance. Click for a larger version.