Lives in Cricket No 49 - Enid Bakewell

6 Chapter One Newstead It stands so proud, the wheel so still, A ghostlike figure on the hill. It seems so strange, there is no sound, Now there are no men underground. What will become of this pit yard Where men once trampled, faces hard? Tired and weary, their shift done, Never having seen the sun. Will it become a sacred ground? Foreign tourists gazing round Asking if men once worked here, Way beneath this pithead gear. Coal not dole (Kay Sutcliffe) The village of Newstead in Nottinghamshire – founded as Newstead Colliery Village – is right in the middle of the Nottinghamshire coalfield, and has seen more than its share of history in the last 100 years. Two wars, a general strike, the nationalisation of the mining industry and the railways, Doctor Beeching, the miners’ strike and the end of mining and its aftermath, all have left their particular marks on the village. There was no village there when Lord Byron was living up the road at Newstead Abbey; the village itself was a creation of the mining industry. The Nottinghamshire coalfield was being vigorously worked to provide the coal the new heavy industries needed, and new pits were being opened. Annesley Pit was sunk in 1865, Newstead in 1874. Newstead Colliery Village was built in 1875 to house the workers from Newstead pit. At the same time there was the development of the railways, needed to transport the coal. The Midland Railway line was there from 1849, but the Great Northern and Great Central lines were built towards the end of the century (by which time railway mania had long abated and lines were only built where they were needed). The story is told by the mining history website: Newstead Colliery’s history began in 1874 when two 13 ft diameter shafts were sunk by the Newstead Colliery Company. The ‘old village’ was built in 1875 to house miners and their families and a year later the first coal was produced.