Sourced from the NMRS the BuddlePit database has Fairbottom Colliery. Roughly at the position marked there was a Newcomen drainage engine installed in the mid 1760's. It's possible this was actually secondhand and moved from another site. It was long out of use by the date given for the start of Fairbottom Colliery opening. This area is known locally as Fairbottom Bobs, the name remembering the engine.
It was said to drain 'Cannel Colliery'. Cannel could be used because the water was output to the nearby Ashton Canal or more likley from cannel coal, which is a poor quality coal (the name possibly derrived from candle coal).
Out of use by the late 1820s, the engine remained in situ and in reasonable condition for over a hundred years after it had gone out of use. Eventually, in 1927, Lord Stamford gave it to Henry Ford's British agent and it was dismantled and taken to Ford's musuem at Dearborn where it is now on display (in a somewhat sanitised way as the original beam couldn't be saved). There is no written or pictorial record of the engine having an engine house.
Following image is from a 1917 photograph taken by Maurice Lees
This image (copyright unknown) is said to date from 1886
It was said to drain 'Cannel Colliery'. Cannel could be used because the water was output to the nearby Ashton Canal or more likley from cannel coal, which is a poor quality coal (the name possibly derrived from candle coal).
Out of use by the late 1820s, the engine remained in situ and in reasonable condition for over a hundred years after it had gone out of use. Eventually, in 1927, Lord Stamford gave it to Henry Ford's British agent and it was dismantled and taken to Ford's musuem at Dearborn where it is now on display (in a somewhat sanitised way as the original beam couldn't be saved). There is no written or pictorial record of the engine having an engine house.
Following image is from a 1917 photograph taken by Maurice Lees
This image (copyright unknown) is said to date from 1886
