Denton, Manchester

Hulme's Pit was one of the oldest in the Denton area and it was on Hulme's Lane (formerly Holmes Lane) by the side of the river Tame. It is reputed to have opened in c1730 but in due course it was taken over by the much larger Denton Colliery Company for use as a pumping station to drain water from their mine workings.

The workforce for the pit came largely from the immediate vicinity. There were cottages on either side of it by the river but the largest concentration was at the hamlet of Beat Bank adjoining Stockport Lane. There were more coal pits upstream in the Haughton Dale direction and it is likely that miners came in from that area by walking alongside the river.

Due to its location by the river Tame, there was always a serious problem of drainage and in its early days this would have imposed a severe limitation on deep mining by the capacity and expense of mine-pumping equipment. In its early days it is likely that men and horses used primitive pumps to overcome the drainage problem.

The first viable engine was the atmospheric engine introduced by Thomas Newcomen in 1712 but there is no evidence for the use of an engine of this type at Hulme's Pit. The next important development was the steam engine (known as a beam engine), introduced by James Watt in 1776, and it is likely that the engine installed at Hulme's Pit was a Watt beam engine or more correctly a Boulton & Watt beam engine, as Matthew Boulton was the business partner of James Watt.

It is not known when the beam engine was installed but there is a record of its existence in 1834. Prior to the pit being taken over by Denton Colliery, it was used for both winding (men and coal) and pumping. It raised water from a depth of 420 feet at a boiler pressure of five pounds per square inch. In the early 1920s it was recorded that it removed eight gallons of water per stroke at six strokes per minute. It worked 4½ hours a day, 7 days a week and it consumed three tons of coal per week. This means that it raised 4,730,400 gallons of water from the workings of Denton Colliery every year for a coal consumption of 156 tons.

Hulme's Pit closed in 1929/30, at the same time as Denton Colliery, and the beam engine was scrapped in the early 1930s. All the buildings associated with the pit were subsequently demolished, as were the cottages alongside the river, the last to go being the terraced row of four cottages near Stockport Lane. Similarly, the cluster of cottages at Beat Bank was demolished, leaving the farmhouse and adjoining barn, which survived until after World War II.

Surviving stone foundations of the pit were excavated in the 1970s and the reservoir was reinstated as a wildlife pond. It is interesting to note that just a few of the garden plants at the cottages by the river survived and with luck it is sometimes possible to see them.

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Hulme's Pit, c1900. This coal mine in Hulme's Wood was one of many in Denton and Haughton areas.	The interior of the Winding House at Hulme's Pit showing the beam engine, c1900. The flywheel is in the foreground and the beam is just visible at the top left.
A row of miners' cottages on Hulme's Lane, close to Stockport Lane, c1910. The farmhouse at Beat Bank can be seen in the background on the left and the barn is behind it. In 1939 the Home Guard dug trenches in front of the farmhouse.	Miners' cottages in Hulme's Wood, c1900. The river Tame is just off the picture on the right.
Miners' cottages in Hulme's Wood, c1900. This view is looking across the river Tame.	Cottages in Lower Haughton by Arden Weir, 9 January 1950. The weir was built across the river Tame to supply water for two turbines that powered machinery in Arden Mill on the Bredbury side of the river Tame.

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