Bettisfield Colliery Winding Engine House and Heapstead

Cadw's description

Location

Located on the W side of a lane off the N side of the A 548 between Bagillt and Dee Bank. The engine house is straight ahead when passing under the railway bridge.

Exterior

Coal mining began in the area around Bagillt in the Mid C18. Bettisfield Colliery, located on the edge of the marshes next to the railway, was established in the mid C19, and operated until the mid C20. The winding engine house and heapstead were probably built circa 1880's. The building formerly housed a horizontal steam engine and winding drum.

The engine house is a tall gabled structure in brick with a slate roof and round-headed windows with small-paned metal frames. The brick walls are completely plain, but for a corbelled eaves cornice. The contiguous heapstead structures are built of rubble sandstone. Each long elevation has 2 arched windows grouped around its centre at first floor level, together with a square-headed doorway near the W end on each side. The SW gable has two arched windows at first floor height, a round opening to the top of the gable, and a blocked archway to the centre at ground level. The NE gable has a similar ground level arch but the upper parts are constructed with timber beams to make large openings for the winding cables up to the apex of the roof. Two timber brackets which were part of the wooden headframe are held to the sides by wrought iron bands and supported by a line of corbelled brickwork. No other remains of the formerly ubiquitous timber headframes are known to survive in Wales. The heapstead structure consists of several linked walls containing archways and the brick top of the former shaft. This structure was the base for the headframe and provided a platform for the dual-level access to the shaft and tippling of coal drams into waiting wagons. The interior of the engine house retains the large brick walls and sandstone blocks which supported the engine bed.

Listed as representative of one of the few surviving colliery winding engine houses in North Wales, and one of monumental proportions. The surviving heapstead and headframe brackets are notable rare features.