Blakelow Colliery 2

Coal mining on the southern side of Macclesfield Common was concentrated around Blakelow via a number of shafts to the north-east of the current boundary of Macclesfield Golf Club. The Macclesfield Copper Company leased the Blakelow workings in the later eighteenth century and was extracting the coal from the two Holcombe Brook Seams using pillar and stall workings drained by a sough driven from lower down the hill towards Macclesfield town. The seams were thin and sometimes less than 2ft thick, but the quality was good enough to make it worthwhile extracting them.

Standing with my back to the town the sunken remains of the No.2 shaft is visible in the field. The stone lined shaft was filled in some years ago using the material from the spoil mound that was around it. One of the shafts on this colliery was 237ft deep.