Silverdale Mining Memorial Garden
Children of the Silverdale Community Primary School have created a memorial garden at their school. It was officially opened on the 7th October 20010. They had spent two years designing and creating the area. The school’s dream of creating a tribute to mark the closure of Silverdale colliery became a reality last year when it won £5.000 through the Class Act competition run jointly with the Sentinel and sponsors Barclays.
Parents, civic dignitaries and former miners were sown around the garden, which featured a replica of the big wheel which stood by the colliery gates, and a miners’ tub which had been transformed into a flower bed. Other features of the garden include around 15 fruit trees, a path to walk through and a tranquil area.
Trainee teacher Lara Slack helped children design the garden. She said: It’s taken a lot of hours and hard work to get to where we are now, but all the children and staff is really pleased with what we have achieved. “We wanted to create an orchard, so we have planted around15 fruit trees to resemble he the fruits of labour coming from the ground, just like the miners used to take the coal out. The children from our eco-club came up with the designs for the garden, and we’ve worked with them to come up with the final idea to make sure it was how they wanted it to look. I used to go to this Primary School and I would like to have loved to do something like this when I was here. The idea is that in years to come, all the plants will have grown, and it will be like an arboretum.”
Most of the school’s pupils were not even born when the final shift clocked-off at the colliery on Christmas Eve, 1998. Deputy head-teacher Alison Blaney said: “We wanted to create a link between the older and younger generations of the community, and we think the garden is an excellent way of doing that. “It’s not just for the school: it’s a place where the community can come and reflect on the past and look back on the history of the village. “The reaction we have had from the village has been tremendous.”
Following the official opening of the garden by Newcastle mayor councillor Ann Heames, a time capsule was buried in the garden, containing photographs of school children and newspaper cuttings among other items. Paul Farrely, M.P. for Newcastleplanted a tree of remembrance.George Cairns, a labour councillor and ex-Silverdale miner, said the garden was a fitting tribute to the many miners who were injured or killed just doing their jobs. He said: “It’s made me feel very proud to see something like this.
/ We all worked really hard to make it become a reality.Francesca Mitchell-Howe, age 10 from Silverdale, said: “It was really good being able to design the garden. We worked hard to make it become a reality.
Callum Swift, age 10 from Silverdale said: "We've had lessons in school about the mines and the history of the village. I hope old people will enjoy the garden as well as the young."
Lewis Bithell, age 8 from Silverdale, said: "I think the time capsule is a really good idea because children will be able to look at it in hundreds of years."
/ This is the memorial at the entrance to the village of Silverdale
The miner is hand-putting, that is pushing the tub manually. This was later replaced by the use of pit-ponies, followed by rope-haulage, then conveyor belts and underground locomotives.
This is a sample of Evening Sentinel news about Silverdale colliery
Evening Sentinel Oct 19th 1976 Page 1.City Final edition.
Sir D. Ezra today said productivity levels in the mining industry had fallen, but held out a bright hope for the future, because of performances of pits such as Silverdale, one of Europe’s most successful collieries. (Full Story) Sir D. Ezra today said productivity levels in the mining industry had fallen, but held out a bright hope for the future, because of performances of pits such as Silverdale, one of Europe’s most successful collieries. (Full Story)
Evening Sentinel Nov. 4th 1976 Page 18. Crewe edition
Silverdale colliery whose first shafts were sunk more than a hundred years ago, a pile of money, the latest tunnelling, mining techniques, and a lot of hard graft are going into creating by 1983, a new mine on the site of the old one. (Full article)
Evening Sentinel August 24th 1977 Page1.Final edition.
Silverdale colliery is the safest pit in Britain, and they have a trophy to prove it. There is a photograph of Mr. Jack Evans, N.C.B. western area chief mining engineer handing the trophy to Mr. Arthur Hill, the colliery’s deputy manager.
Evening Sentinel Oct 18th 1978 Page 11 Final edition.
Mr Jack Evans, Chief Engineer of the Western area, described Silverdale colliery, the safest pit in Britain as a credit to the coal industry, also the most profitable.
Evening Sentinel Sep. 23rd 1981 Page 1 Crewe edition.
Father of five, Mr. B. Ball age 44 died today after being crushed in an underground tragedy at Silverdale.
Evening Sentinel March 25th 1982 Page 14 Crewe edition.
Newcastle’s Mayor, Miss E. Mayer led a civic visit to Silverdale colliery to inspect a mining project costing above £30m. Page 18.The miner killed in a 3.000 feet horror Hem Heath plunge was named L. Weston age 44, a father of four. He was identified by finger prints and dental records.
Evening Sentinel April 19th 1986 Page 14 Final edition.
Miners at Silverdale have just notched up the best productivity and record in the pit’s 100-year history.
Evening Sentinel March 19th 1987 Page 3 Final edition.
There is a photo of miners at Silverdale, celebrating after hitting 1m tonnes in a year mark.
Evening Sentinel March 21st 1989 Page 20 County edition.
Miners’ at Silverdale have beaten a million tonne productivity target for the third year running. They expect to send output even higher as work on a £30m investment programme begins.
Evening Sentinel March 20th 1991 Page 18 Newcastle edition.
New fears have been voiced that Silverdale colliery faces closure. The pit has been forced to stockpile 8.000 tonnes of coal because power companies are not accepting supplies as they are getting coal from European sources.
Evening Sentinel Jan 28th 1992 Page 3 County edition.
George Stevenson, Euro MP for Staffordshire East, called on British Coal to come clean on the future of deep coal mining in North Staffs to end the present massive uncertainty in the industry. He believed secret negotiations between British coal and the electricity generating companies would end with just 12 super profitable pits in Britain. He added Silverdale and Trentham would be closed because of government dogma, not because of any desire to improve the industry as a whole.
Evening Sentinel Sep 19th 1992 Page 3 Final edition
Workers at Silverdale today welcomed news that the mine is not on the confidential list of 30 pits to close. But many fear the reprieve is temporary.
Sentinel Jan 18th 1993 Page 3 County edition
Miners’ leader A.Scargill has accused the government of “treachery” and “sabotage” over plans to close Trentham and Silverdale collieries.
Sentinel Oct 21st 1993 Page 3 Cheshire
Miner’s leader A.Scargill has warned that Silverdale colliery has moved a step closer to closure. A package of measures was unveiled Energy Minister Tim Eggar yesterday which appeared to sound the death knell for the pit and the privatisation of the rest of the industry. (More on page 14)
Sentinel May 16th 1994 Page 8 Cheshire editions.
Although Silverdale may survive on a small scale, it’s already been decided to establish a permanent memorial to 150 years of mining in the village.
Sentinel 21st July 1994 Page 14 Cheshire editions
A new era has dawned at Silverdale colliery with Malcolm Edwards taking on the 200 year old site. His company has identified 90m tonnes of coal reserves and will lease the site until 2009.
Sentinel 24th Nov 1994 Page 38 News in focus edition
Full page article on Silverdale colliery, Poised to erect a Stirling memorial to the pit.
Evening Sentinel 17th April 1995 Page 9 Final edition
Newcastle Mayor Betty Caddy received a set of rare stamps for the Borough’s museum depicting Sir Joseph Cook, a Silverdale miner who rose to become the Prime Minister of Australia.
Evening Sentinel 5th Sep 1995 Page 1 City edition
A miner has died after suffering leg injuries in an accident at Silverdale colliery. Robert Harley age 31 died yesterday after being hurt while operating an underground bunker.
Evening Sentinel 8th June 1996 Page 21 Relax edition
An article by John Abberley, on mining at Silverdale include the names of those killed, are inscribed on a memorial unveiled today.
Evening Sentinel 10th June 1996 Page 7 News edition
More that 1.500 people tuned up in the blazing sunshine to watch a tribute to a village’s mining past unveiled at Silverdale.
Evening Sentinel 10th Feb 1998 Page 8 and 9
Today the bombshell dropped that Silverdale colliery was to close in September and loss over 300 jobs. Workers were given 90 days warning of redundancy yesterday as they came off shift.
Evening Sentinel 24th Dec 1998 Page 1 Special edition
the last shift at Silverdale colliery came up today marking the end of almost 200 years of mining in the village. (More on page 8 and 9)
To see more extracts of sentinelsclick on link below. Full details are available in Hanley library archives on micro film.
The North Staffs Miners Group were invited to attend the official opening of Silverdale Community Primary school memorial garden on Thursday 7th October 2010 pictured below is one of our members, Joyce Wilson.
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